Speaker
Description
Insect-based foods represent an intriguing solution to address issues associated with traditional meat diets. However, in Western cultures, there is a predominantly negative attitude towards such foods.
We conducted an experimental study implementing a Vicarious Approach-Avoidance procedure, a subtype of social learning. The aim was to investigate whether and how attitudes towards insect-based foods are influenced by reading short vignettes describing individuals engaging in approach or avoidance behaviors.
We employed a procedure similar to Zogmaister et al. (2023). Each participant read two vignettes: in the first one, the individual uses a voucher received from a promoter to obtain a package of cookies from a brand; in the second one, the voucher for a different brand is thrown away.
Furthermore, half of the participants were told that the cookies were made with insect flour, while the others were not given this information.
The sample consisted of 127 participants. We administered implicit and explicit measures to investigate attitudes, intentions of purchase and consumption, and automatic reactions toward the products while considering individual disgust levels.
The manipulation effectively affected explicit attitudes, F(1, 111)= 9.82, p= .002, η2p= .04, and intentions of purchase and consumption, F(1, 125)= 9.27, p= .003, η2p= 0.01, with participants expressing higher scores towards products associated with approach compared to those associated with avoidance behaviors.
The study enriches the literature on the effect of the Vicarious Approach-Avoidance procedure, particularly providing evidence that the procedure remains effective even when products that could elicit adverse reactions in participants are involved.
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