The impact of social values on food‐related attitudes
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/10610429510097654 |
| Date | 01 October 1995 |
| Published date | 01 October 1995 |
| Pages | 6-14 |
| Author | Ronald E. Goldsmith,Jon Freiden,Kenneth V. Henderson |
| Subject Matter | Marketing |
Introduction
Marketers, consumer psychologists, and public policy makers have an
interest in the personal and social values of consumers because these deeply
held feelings of what is important in life influence both consumer attitudes
and behaviors. Reflecting desired end states or ways of living, values may in
part represent some of the fundamental motives that drive and direct
consumer behavior. Thus, uncovering associations between abstract, general
values and more specific product attitudes and behaviors provides some
explanation for differences across consumers for these dependent variables
(Homer and Kahle, 1988).
Most research in this area has focussed on values, attitudes and behaviors for
high involvement product fields such as:
●clothing (Goldsmith et al., 1993);
●mass media consumption (Becker and Conner, 1981); or
●tourism (Madrigal, 1992).
Some research, however, suggests that the influence of values may not be
limited to high involvement areas, but may also be relevant to less involving
product fields such as natural food (Homer and Kahle, 1988).
This article presents a study that investigated the relationships between self-
reported social values, food attitudes and food consumption for a variety of
low-involvement foods. Our research concluded that some social values
were related to consumption of snack food independently of the effects of
demographic variables, thus expanding the scope of values research.
Marketers of these types of products can use this knowledge to design
effective promotional brand strategies.
Background
Goldsmith et al. (1993) have shown that the social values of excitement and
fun and enjoyment in life are consistently associated with fashion
involvement and purchasing new clothing. Rose et al. (1994) found that
external values were associated with a higher need for group identification
and affiliation, conformity, and a greater emphasis on the display aspects of
clothing such as style and brand, while internal values were associated with
a lower need for group identification and affiliation, a lower tendency
toward conformity, and a greater emphasis on the utilitarian aspects of
clothing.
These findings are important because they show that where consumers
interact with product categories that visibly represent to others something
about themselves values may guide product purchase and use. Certainly such
6 JOURNAL OF PRODUCT & BRAND MANAGEMENT VOL. 4 NO. 4 1995 pp. 6-14 © MCB UNIVERSITY PRESS 1061-0421
The impact of social values on
food-related attitudes
Ronald E. Goldsmith, Jon Freiden and Kenneth V. Henderson
External and internal
values
The authors would like to thank Bob Pitts and Lynn Kahle for their assistance with
this project.
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