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KAMAL_Dissertation Draft 53.87 MB
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Dissertation
Consumer Resistance to Transformative Consumption Behavior
Washington State University
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Washington State University
01/2022
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.7273/000004536
Handle:
https://hdl.handle.net/2376/123765
Abstract
Novel food technologies have considerable potential to ensure environmental sustainability and consumer well-being. However, consumers are programmed to prefer familiar foods over unfamiliar options produced by novel technologies. Novel foods are often rejected by consumers for variety of reasons including lack of knowledge about the technology, negative emotion such as disgust elicited by the appearance of the foods, personality trait such as food technology neophobia, and environmental factor such as large-scale threat that disrupts daily routine. Thus, the success of any novel food hinges on consumers’ responses to the food and the associated technology. Cell-based and plant-based meat alternatives are modern scientific miracle and solution to environmental, health, and ethical problems associated with industrial cattle farming and overconsumption of meat. However, consumers’ resistance to novel meat alternatives is the biggest obstacle to this overall well-being. Across two essays, I find that consumers demonstrate implicit and explicit resistance to both cell-based and plant-based meat alternatives due to many internal and external factors. Among the internal factors are consumers’ lack of knowledge about the technology and personality trait. However, this research suggests that much of this resistance can be attenuated by marketing and product-related interventions.
Additionally, I find that large-scale threat that disrupts our daily routines and blocks the self-continuity contributes to the increased resistance to both cell-based and plant-based meat alternatives. Importantly, this increased resistance can be attenuated by consumers’ presence of and search for higher meaning in life. The findings also suggest that the resistance is attenuated even when consumers’ perceived meaning in life is experimentally boosted with intervention. The present research contributes to marketing and public policy literature. This research provides guidelines for both marketing managers and public policy makers on the issue of novel meat alternatives.
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Details
- Title
- Consumer Resistance to Transformative Consumption Behavior
- Creators
- Kamal Ahmmad
- Contributors
- ELIZABETH HOWLETT (Advisor)Andrew Perkins (Committee Member)Kunter Gunasti (Committee Member)Chadwick Miller (Committee Member)
- Awarding Institution
- Washington State University
- Academic Unit
- Carson College of Business
- Theses and Dissertations
- Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Washington State University
- Publisher
- Washington State University
- Number of pages
- 134
- Identifiers
- 99900882928601842
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Dissertation