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Processes related to consumer behavior
The relationship between products and consumers is mutual, as products are created based on consumers’ behavior analysis, yet once the products are on the market they influence later consumer behavior (Grunert, 2006). Consumer behavior is defined as those “actions directly involved in obtaining, consuming, and disposing of products or services, including the decision processes that precede and follow these actions” (Engel et al., 1990, p.3). Engel et al., (1990), proposed that to properly understand consumer behavior, the influence of different factors need to be taken into account. They developed a consumer behavior model, also called the “Engel, Blackwell, Miniard” (EBM) model (Figure 5). They divided the factors involved in food behavior, into the environmental influences, the individual differences, and the psychological process that shape the decision. In the previous sections, we detailed the external factors (environmental influences) and the internal factors (individual differences) influencing the decision process. We thus will focus on the present section to explain the psychological process behind consumer behavior.
Methods and paradigms inspired by sensory evaluation, marketing, and psychology
To understand consumers’ food choices and encourage changes in current food habits, different approaches have been used and combined over time. These approaches are inspired by several disciplines, principally, sensory evaluation, marketing, and cognitive psychology. Each discipline has used its own conceptual frameworks and methodologies to study consumer behavior.
The use of sensory evaluation to study food choices
Sensory evaluation is a scientific method used to evoke, measure, analyze, and interpret information originating from a product and perceived through senses (Stone & Sidel, 2004). Traditionally the sensory science has been product-oriented, focusing on the relationship between sensory evaluation and the characteristics of a product (Trijp & Schifferstein, 1995). Usually, products in the sensory evaluation are blind-labeled, and the results obtained inform about the sensory attributes of the products (Lawless & Heymann, 2010). One of the attributes that drive most of the sensory perception is taste and it tends to be a limiting factor in food choice (Furst et al., 1996). However, even if the liking for a particular food attribute can determine later choice, simply perceiving these sensory attributes does not mean that the person would or not choose a specific food product (Shepherd, 2001). Köster (2009) highlighted that sensory science focused mainly on what can be perceived, yet how and to what extent, the perceptual system influence and consumer behavior control was not taken into consideration. Sensory science focuses on the intrinsic characteristics of the food product (e.g. taste), overlooking the influence of other extrinsic characteristics such as the price or the retail environment at the moment of food choice.
The use of marketing to study food choices
The principal objective of marketing is to combine, the product, price, promotion, and place (marketing mix) to fulfill consumers’ needs in the most cost-effective way (Trijp & Schifferstein, 1995). One of the concerns in marketing is generalize the results obtained in a research context to explain and predict actual food choices in the market (Trijp & Schifferstein, 1995). As stated by Lawless & Heymann, (2010), in marketing tests, the identity of the product is based on explicit information (labels, claims, nutritional info), and the results obtained inform about the overall appeal of the product (concept, positioning, advertising). Thus, marketing focuses on the extrinsic characteristics of the products in an environment reflecting closely the real moment of food choice, but it does not provide access to the understanding of how and why consumers achieved their choices.
The use of cognitive psychology to study food choices
The goal of cognitive psychology is to “understand how people acquire, store, retrieve and use knowledge and information” (Abdi, 2002, p.445). The cognitive psychologist tries to describe the more precisely as possible the mental operations (or processes) that take place between the stimuli and a response -between a situation, the instructions, and the final behavior- (Lemaire et al., 2018). Even though eating and drinking are one of the most important and frequent human behaviors, studying consumer behavior and food choices by psychology was not always done (Abdi, 2002). Nowadays, one of the objectives of cognitive psychology is to specify the mental representations and the process involved in those representations, when an individual for example is asked to make a food choice (Lemaire et al., 2018). Usually, to understand such as psychological processes, there is a need to control closely the environment and to select several variables to be studied in which a food choice is taking place.
The interest of an integrative approach to study food choices
Each of these disciplines previously exposed contributes to understand different parts of consumer food choices, focusing on the intrinsic product properties that interest consumers (sensory), on the extrinsic product properties, and satisfying consumers’ needs (marketing) and on the processes involved to explain food choices (cognitive).
Some authors have pointed out the interest to study consumers’ behavior with integrative regard. Urdapilleta & Dacremont (2006) stated that the sensory evaluation is a “dynamic and multidisciplinary field in which psychologists play an important role” (p.209). But the sensory evaluation was based mostly on explicit (conscious) methods like questionnaires and scaling, whereas decision making often occurs without conscious control (Köster, 2009). As a consequence, since 2006, there have been different advances in rapid methodologies that focus on automatic behaviors, as well as more indirect methodologies inspired from psychology, in which consumers do not have to give an explicit response (Varela & Ares, 2018). Furthermore, sensory food science is in fact at the intersection between many other disciplines and research approaches (Tuorila and Monteleone, 2009). Trijp & Schifferstein, (1995), highlighted that a closer cooperation between marketing and sensory evaluation may result in the development of new methods that relate sensory evaluation to consumer behavior. For example, the Check-All-That-Apply (CATA) method that was primarily used to study consumer perception towards brands (marketing), and then was used in the sensory evaluation as a quick descriptive method, that allows to access the reasons of consumer preferences (Valentin et al., 2012). Similarly, marketing was seen as an opportunity to apply psychological principals and techniques that would allow us to investigate human behavior in a market place (Alderson, 1952). Instead of traditional tools such as surveys, observations, or interviews to understand human behavior and decision making, marketing has used other techniques (Alvino et al., 2018), such as implicit measures, that have been shown to reduce the drawbacks related to the explicit measures and allow the study of implicit cognition (non-conscious) (Trendel & Warlop, 2005).
To better comprehend consumer behavior, the studies should be multi-faceted to understand the observed object and through this the living individual (Risvik, 2001). The observed object should be studied having in consideration both the intrinsic and extrinsic characteristics (Trijp & Schifferstein, 1995). Consequently, through this thesis, we decided to integrate the advantages of each discipline to better understand consumer food choices. In this thesis, adapted methodologies and tools are being proposed, that combine different approaches originating from different disciplines. They can be divided into three categories: direct, indirect methods and implicit measures.
Importance of the Contextual setting for consumer research
Independently of the type of method used to study and understand consumer behavior, there is a need to have into consideration the place in which the study takes place, especially when studying food choices. It is known that context impacts behavior. In the consumer research area, traditionally, research was performed in the laboratory to control all the variables. However, the need to conduct the studies in a more natural setting was highlighted. Yet, by increasing the realism of the context of a study, the control over certain variables may be limited and it may be difficult to reproduce the same setting for all the participants. As a consequence, recent approaches have been developed to overcome the limits between laboratory settings and natural contexts, such as evoked context, immersive context, and virtual reality (Galiñanes Plaza et al., 2019). These approaches can be used to better understand consumer behavior in a specific context of consumption or choice.
Nudging as a tool to impact behavior
All the different methods previously exposed allow the understanding of consumer behavior while taking into consideration the importance of the context. Nevertheless, there is always the question of what to do when a behavior differs from the behavior commonly considered as acceptable. How can we help consumers to change their behaviors towards a more healthy and eco-friendly diet? Lambert, (2001) identified that “behavioral change can be brought by influencing the individual and/ or by affecting the environment of this individual” (p.143). Other behaviors can be prompted at the individual level by increasing knowledge of diet and health or modifying attitudes, perceptions, food preferences, motivations, and willingness to change. The environmental factors that can be used as levers to help people to change their choices include for example the family, communication channels, social norms, advertising, and food access. Usually, one of the most widely used tools to improve eating behavior is educating consumers by providing information, yet this kind of strategy rarely results in sustained improvement of eating behavior (van Kleef & van Trijp, 2018). One of the reasons for the lack of efficiency of this strategy is that consumers willing to change their eating behavior are involved both in conscious decision making, but also in automatic and non-conscious actions (de Boer et al., 2014). Food choices are considered to be low-involvement decision-making (van Kleef & van Trijp, 2018). Thus, the strategies to promote and change consumer behavior should not focus on providing elaborate information, but alternative strategies should be preferred. As a consequence, other strategies have been developed to improve consumers’ food choices, for example, those based on the concept of “nudging”, which means “subtly guiding” (van Kleef & van Trijp, 2018). A nudge, as explained by Thaler and Sunstein, is “any aspect of the choice architecture that alters people’s behavior predictably without forbidding any options or significantly changing their economic incentives”(Thaler & Sunstein, 2008). The choice architecture refers to the idea that changes in the environment where a decision is made can affect individual decision making, and thus behavior, while always preserving the freedom of choice (Thaler et al., 2010). A nudge strategy is characterized by four central elements (i) do not rely on explicitly indicating “what to do” to the consumer, (ii) nudges should always encourage a more socially desirable choice, by favoring healthier or more sustainable behaviors, or decreasing the negative ones, (iii) do not remove choice options, and finally (iv) the nudge strategies are usually small, easy to implement and inexpensive (Purnhagen & van Kleef, 2018). The design of a nudging study focuses on a reshaping of the choice architecture to obtain from consumers a desirable choice or behavior (van Kleef & van Trijp, 2018). There are different classifications of the nudge strategies. Münscher et al., (2016), classify nudges taking into consideration the changes in the choice architecture by providing information, assistance, or changing the structure (arrangement of options). Hansen & Jespersen, (2013) propose to classify nudges in four categories according to their mode of thinking (reflective or automatic) and the transparency of the nudge (if the user can see the intention behind). For example, playing relaxing music while boarding a plane to calm passengers, is considered a nudge that intends to influence behavior without engaging the reflective system, but in an easy way that allows the person to identify the means behind (Transparent type I). A segmentation cue while eating chips (Geier et al., 2012), is considered a nudge that engages the reflective system while it is easy for the person to reconstruct the intention behind (Transparent type II). By contrast, changing the organization of a buffet (Wansink & Hanks, 2013) is a nudge that causes behavior change without engaging the reflective system, and the person is not likely to recognize the means (Non-transparent type I). Posting posters with human faces to increase the obedience rates of norms, engage the reflective system but people cannot have access to the intention behind (Non-transparent type II). Likewise, this classification proposed by the authors is not exhaustive, because some specific nudges may be difficult to classify, due to their complex structure (Hansen & Jespersen, 2013).
Table of contents :
THESIS VALORIZATION
Publication in peer-reviewed journal
Proceedings
Oral communication in national and international conferences
Poster communication in national and international conference
CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION & THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
1. Food transition: more beans than beef, please
1.1. General context of the current food transition
1.2. Proteins in animal and plant products
1.3. Legumes and pulses
1.4. The numerous benefits of pulses consumption
The environmental benefits of pulses
Nutrition and Health benefits of pulses
1.5. The supply chain of pulses in France
1.6. Consumption of pulses in France
Possible factors contributing to the low consumption of pulses
2. Food choices
2.1. Factors related to the Food
2.2. Factors related to the Person
2.3. Processes related to consumer behavior
3. Different approaches to understand consumers’ representations, attitudes, and behavior towards food
3.1. Methods and paradigms inspired by sensory evaluation, marketing, and psychology
The use of sensory evaluation to study food choices
The use of marketing to study food choices
The use of cognitive psychology to study food choices
The interest of an integrative approach to study food choices
3.2. A diversity of experimental methods
Direct methods and explicit measures
Indirect methods
Implicit measures
3.3. Importance of the Contextual setting for consumer research
Evoked context
Immersive context
Virtual reality context
3.4. Nudging as a tool to impact behavior
3.5. Brief state of the art about studies combining different approaches to understand food choices
STRUCTURE OF THE THESIS
A. Aim of the thesis
B. Thesis outline
CHAPTER II. SOCIAL REPRESENTATIONS TOWARDS PULSES IN FRANCE, FROM CONSUMERS AND PROFESSIONALS OF THE PULSES INDUSTRY PERSPECTIVES
CHAPTER III. USE OF A LABORATORY SETTING TO EVALUATE FOOD CHOICES AND UNDERSTAND CONSUMERS’ MENTAL REPRESENTATIONS, BELIEFS, AND KNOWLEDGE ABOUT PULSES
CHAPTER IV. ARE CONSUMERS’ MENTAL REPRESENTATIONS INFLUENCED BY THE LEVEL OF PROCESSING OF PULSE-BASED PRODUCTS?
CHAPTER V. A MORE REALISTIC ENVIRONMENT – A VIRTUAL SUPERMARKET – TO EVALUATE VISUAL ATTENTION AND FOOD CHOICE BEHAVIOR OF CONSUMERS TOWARDS PULSE-BASED
CHAPTER VI. A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY: CONSUMERS SOCIAL REPRESENTATIONS TOWARDS PULSES IN FRANCE AND SPAIN
CHAPTER VII. GENERAL DISCUSSION
1. Methodological considerations
2. A reminder of the main findings
3. Discussion of the main findings
3.1. Barriers to pulse consumption in France
The level of processing: a paradox
Observed knowledge, mental representations, and attitudes toward pulse-based products .
3.2. Opportunities and future strategies to promote pulses consumption
Innovative processes and new products to overcome the limits of preparation and the negative image of ultra-processed foods
Further knowledge, representations, and attitudes toward pulse-based products
Taste at the center of the product development and effective communication strategies
Using social context as support to increase pulses choices
Eating pulses for the environment and myself
To sum up: barriers identified and strategies to be considered
4. Strengths and innovations of this research
GENERAL CONCLUSION
RESUME EN FRANÇAIS
REFERENCES
