Influence of the color and size of the plate on the subjective ratings of, taste expectations concerning, and willingness‐to‐pay for, Asian noodles

Abstract

Two experiments were designed to investigate the effect of plate color and plate size on taste expectations, subjective ratings of, and willingness‐to‐pay for, Asian noodles and Italian pastas. Chinese participants viewed photographs of these foods served on plates of different colors and sizes, rated their liking, familiarity, taste expectations for the foods, and indicated how much they would be willing to pay for them. The foods were presented against the backdrop of store‐bought or computer‐edited colored plates. Presenting the food on white plates resulted in the highest familiarity scores. Interestingly, the participants were willing to pay approximately 16% more for the same quantity of Asian noodles when served on smaller (rather than larger) plates. Different patterns of results were observed with two types of Italian pasta that the Chinese participants were less familiar with, suggesting a moderating role of the familiarity people have with the foods. Practical applications The present study provides novel findings concerning the influence of plateware on Asian noodles, a commonly eaten food in many Asian countries. The findings suggest a fundamental difference between the role of plateware in the subjective ratings of, and taste expectations concerning, regularly consumed familiar and unfamiliar foods as in the present study and the snack food in previous studies. These findings are therefore relevant to those researchers and practitioners interested in how the receptacle, as an important contextual factor, influences consumers' perception and consumption of foods. These findings also have direct implications for those serving food in restaurants.

Self‐construal priming modulates the influence of receptacles on food perception

“…First, the results of this study revealed that plate size exerted an influence on Chinese participants' willingness to pay for the Asian noodles shown on the plate, and both plate size and plate color influenced their pleasantness, familiarity, and food‐plate congruency ratings of the foods. These results are in line with the findings of Zhao et al's (2018) Experiment 2 in which the same photos of noodles were used but the participants were not exposed to any priming. Collectively, the findings of these two studies suggest that the effects of receptacles on the Chinese participants' perception of Asian noodles are quite robust in well‐controlled lab‐based situations.…”

“…Each participant came to a psychology laboratory on campus to take part in this study online at http://www.qualtrics.com, and the whole study lasted approximately 10 min. In order to control for the visual appearances of Asian noodles across different plates, we used the same photos (each subtending 240 pixels horizontally × 180 pixels vertically) of computer‐edited plates that Zhao et al (2018) used in their Experiment 2. As shown in Figure 1, approximately 50 g Asian noodles were served on a large‐ or small‐sized (diameter in 26 or 20 cm) plate in color red (H: 356%, S: 99%, B: 81%), blue (H: 218%, S: 42%, B: 55%), or white (H: 55%, S: 19%, B: 95%).…”

“…They were also asked to rate how pleasant and how familiar the noodles looked, as well as how congruent the noodles were with the plates, all on seven‐point scales with higher values indicating the increased intensity of the attribute rated. Similar to Zhao et al's (2018) study, we also asked our participants to rate their expectations concerning the sweetness and saltiness of the noodles on seven‐point scales.…”

“…One type of these immediate contextual factors is the receptacles or containers used to serve drinks or foods. For one, many studies have consistently shown that plate size can influence the amount of foods that are served and consumed (see Holden, Zlatevska, & Dubelaar, 2016), and consumers are even willing to pay more for the same foods shown on small plates than on large plates based on the overestimation of the food amount on small plates (Zhao, An, Spence, & Wan, 2018). For another, using a red plate to present unhealthy foods such as snacks can reduce the participants' intake of these foods (Bruno, Martani, Corsini, & Oleari, 2013; Genschow, Reutner, & Wänke, 2012; Reutner, Genschow, & Wänke, 2015), presumably due to the associations between the color red and danger to trigger avoidance.…”

“…Considering that an interdependent self‐focus can enhance the binding between a focal object with its context (Goh et al, 2007; Masuda & Nisbett, 2001) and elicit context‐dependent processing of the object (Kühnen & Oyserman, 2002), we hypothesized that the interdependent self‐construal priming would enhance the impact of receptacles on the participants' perception of the foods, compared to the independent self‐construal priming. Zhao et al (2018) have demonstrated the influence of plate size on Chinese participants' willingness to pay for Asian noodles, as well as the effects of both plate size and plate color on their subjective ratings of these foods. Therefore, in this study, we adopted the same experimental stimuli and procedure after priming Chinese participants with either the interdependent or independent self‐construal.…”