Consumer Attitudes toward Pulses: Measuring the Implicit.

Area of Science:

• Food science
• Consumer psychology
• Nutritional science

Background:

• Understanding consumer attitudes is crucial for promoting healthier and sustainable diets.
• Previous attitude measurements (e.g., questionnaires) are prone to social desirability bias and may not reflect true, unconscious feelings.
• Implicit attitudes, or automatic associations, are key drivers of food choice and adoption.

Purpose of the Study:

• To compare French consumers' implicit attitudes toward pulses and cereals.
• To investigate subconscious biases that may influence the adoption of pulse-based diets.
• To provide empirical evidence for the role of implicit attitudes in food consumption patterns.

Main Methods:

• Utilized a Sorting Paired Feature Task (SPFT) to measure automatic associations.
• Participants rapidly sorted stimuli pairing images of pulses or cereals with positive or negative adjectives.
• Assessed reaction times and error rates to infer the strength of implicit associations.

Main Results:

• Pairs of pulses and negative adjectives were sorted significantly faster than pairs of cereals and negative adjectives.
• Pairs of cereals and positive adjectives were sorted more rapidly than pairs of pulses and positive adjectives.
• More frequent mistaken associations occurred between cereals and negative adjectives compared to pulses and negative adjectives.

Conclusions:

• The study provides the first evidence of negative implicit attitudes toward pulses among French consumers.
• These negative implicit attitudes may contribute to the observed lower consumption rates of pulses.
• Implicit attitude measurement offers a valuable tool for understanding food preferences beyond conscious awareness.