Let's talk about straw: the effect of information provision on consumers' attitudes towards pig husbandry systems

Abstract

PurposeThe type of flooring in stalls is an important factor that shapes consumers' overall perception of animal husbandry. Although slatted and straw floors have benefits and drawbacks, consumers strongly prefer slatted over straw floors in pig husbandry. The present study investigates whether information provision can depolarise consumers' implicit and explicit attitudes towards both floor types to enable a more realistic evaluation of pig husbandry systems. Furthermore, this study examines the effectiveness of information depending on different frames and consumers' personality traits.Design/methodology/approachAn experimental laboratory study with 185 German consumers was conducted to investigate the effect of information on implicit and explicit attitudes towards different flooring types. Participants received information on straw and slatted floors in a cognitive or affective frame or about a control topic. Furthermore, it was analysed whether certain consumer groups respond differently to the cognitive or affective frame.FindingsThe results demonstrated that information provision is a successful tool for depolarising consumers' implicit and explicit attitudes regarding straw and slatted floors. Although consumers continued to prefer straw floors after receiving information, the magnitude of this preference considerably decreased. Mediation analysis illustrated that implicit and explicit attitudes are highly interconnected. The study found no evidence that the personality traits of consumers moderated the effectiveness of the cognitive or affective frame.Originality/valueThe study proposes that information provision can be a potential avenue for increasing the societal acceptance of conventional methods in pig husbandry and provides recommendations for communicating conditions related to animal husbandry. Furthermore, through the inclusion of an implicit measure, this study overcomes biases of other studies in an agricultural context which usually rely only on explicit measures.

Framing sustainable food production technologies with videos – data from an experiment with German consumers

“…It can be assumed that information provision changes both implicit and explicit attitudes, but Gawronski and Bodenhausen [ 3 ] illustrated that this is not necessarily always the case. Empirical research has also shown that the mediating role of implicit and explicit attitudes requires further exploration [ 4 ]. Therefore, this dataset enables further investigation on this relationship.…”