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Consumer hedonic judgement and behavior
Before starting this section, two main concepts should be defined: judgement and behavior.
A judgement is an evaluation of something like an object or a situation. Hedonic judgements are evaluations of product’s attributes that determine, in part, if a consumer likes or dislikes a product. Behavior is defined as the sum of actions one conducts. Eating behavior involves the selection of products (choice) and their consumption (intake).
When we elaborate a judgement different cognitive processes are involved. According to Stanovich
Literature review and Research Hypotheses
West (2000), we have a dual system that codifies the information we perceive and translates it into a judgement:
System 1, composed by perception and intuition, is characterized by processes that are “fast, automatic, effortless and associative”
System 2, reasoning, is characterized by “slower, serial, effortful and deliberately controlled processes” (Kahneman, 2002, p.450)
When we eat, the mechanisms behind the judgement formation are used to translate the sensory properties of a particular product, perceived by our senses, into a hedonic perception. This process occurs automatically and we do not have any control over it. However, when consumers participate in a test, they perform two different tasks. The first one, tasting it is more prone to activate system 1, perception; and the second one, answering a question, that activates system 2, reasoning. The switch between both systems makes us to formulate a more explicit answer. The fact of asking a question highlights different aspects of the product (framing effects). This modulates our perception in an unconsciously way and “forces” us to give a more conscious and explicit judgement (Dijksterhuis, Smith, van Baaren, & Wigboldus, 2005).
Kahneman (2002) illustrates framing effects with an example of letters and numbers. If we observed the Figure 1 we identify the letters A, B and C, and the numbers 12, 13 and 14, our System 1 is activated. However, we also perceived that letter B and number 13 can be interpreted in a different way. Conversely, if we cut the figure in two lines, we will not have the same access to the information and we will perceive and interpret the letter and number in its contexts. A parallel can be drawn when consumers evaluate products during a test. When we evaluate three products in a consumer’s tests, we frame our perception towards those three products in that particular contexts; whereas in a more complex or natural consumption situation, different information will surround us, which may affect our perception and then our judgement.
In natural consumption contexts, multiple factors external to the product are likely to influence our judgement and our behavior: the environment where we eat, with who we eat, our psychological and physiological state, etc. Factors that are going to unconsciously influence our perception and then, judgement. Figure 2 shows a model proposed by Mojet (Köster, 2009) mapping essential factors in the study of consumers’ eating and drinking behavior, and showing the complexity that surrounds consumers’ hedonic judgements and behavior.
Figure 2. “Essential factors that influence eating and drinking behavior and food choice” according to Mojet (Retrieved from Köster, 2009, p.72).
When studying consumers’ hedonic judgement in consumer’s tests, we avoid somehow the interaction with all those external factors described by Mojet (Köster, 2009). In the last decade, the way to approach consumers’ judgement and behavior has been the center of a debate between sensory and consumer scientists, and psychologists. Köster (2009) highlights the differences between disciplines and underlines the importance to move from a reductionist approach to a deductionist approach. Reductionist approach means consumers’ judgements and behaviors are studied by the modulation of separate variables chosen by the researchers. For example, considering Kahmenan’s letters and numbers example, consumers evaluate A, B and C or 12, 13 and 14. Conversely, a deductionist approach means that consumers’ judgements and behaviors are studied in more complex conditions closer to the natural consumption situation. For example, consumers evaluate A, B, C, 12, 13 and 14.
Thus, when studying consumers’ hedonic judgement in different contexts, we need to first understand the factors (contextual variables) that may influence consumers’ perception in a particular context and second, how the use of questions and scales are going to frame those factors modulating consumers’ perception and in turn, consumers’ hedonic judgement. Therefore, two levels of context effects are presented.
Context and contextual variables: definitions
“The actions people take are affected by a dazzlingly complex set of relational situations, social norms, frames, past experiences, and the lessons gleaned from those experiences. Consequently, the experimental investigator often lacks complete control over the full context within which the subject makes decisions” (Levitt & List, 2007, p. 162).
Context has an impact on consumers’ hedonic judgement which makes it relevant for the performance of consumer tests. The lack of consideration for context when implementing a consumer test has been seeing as the lack of ecological conditions and therefore, has aroused the question of ecological reliability. Not only researchers but also industrials have questioned this, due to the high number of new products failures in the market (Köster & Mojet, 2012a; Köster & Mojet, 2012b)
Context is a very broad concept that has been indistinctly used in the scientific literature as environment, setting, location and/or situation. Meiselman (2006) refers to it as specific physical, social and situational conditions in which food and beverages are consumed. Hence, conditions that are going to influence consumers’ hedonic judgement. For the purpose of this thesis, context refers to specific environment where social interaction may or no occur, in which food and beverages are consumed, and evaluated. In the sensory and consumer research literature, context is considered mainly in two ways. The first approach considers context as a whole (as defined by Meiselman), and the second approach considers the presence or absence of some specific contextual variables in a given context.
Several typologies of contextual variables have been proposed in the literature. Rozin & Tuorila (1993) classify contextual variables in simultaneous (where “contextual factors are physically present during the reference event” p.12) and temporal (“past or anticipated future events that enter the mind of the subject at the time the reference event is occurring” p.12), size of the eating reference unit (bite, dish, meal), and type of contextual variables (food or non-food related); Meiselman (1996) proposes a three classification of contextual variables based on the situation, the individual and the product; whereas Stroebele & De Castro (2004) classify the contextual variables in social variables, physical surroundings, time related characteristics and distractions. Meanwhile, Sester (2013) includes physical environmental variables and consumer variables within the context, and at the same time classify physical environmental variables in those related (or not) to the product and the consumer variables in stable and punctual.
Contexts effects influence consumers’ hedonic perception, so consumers’ judgement. However, the lack of ecological conditions in consumer tests, compromise the generalization of results from controlled conditions to natural consumption contexts. Moreover, in consumer tests, the use of questionnaires or scales, also influence the way in which consumers perceive those factors and in turn, their hedonic judgement. Considering that, and the lack of consensus among previous classifications, we classified the contextual variables in four categories that correspond to the features needed to determine if an experiment is ecologically valid or not (Galiñanes Plaza, Delarue, & Saulais, 2019). This classification includes the environment in which consumers perceive a product, the product evaluated, the consumer who evaluate the product within the environment, and the evaluation task that takes place in that environment (Figure 3).
Within each category different contextual variables that may influence consumers’ perception and that have aroused the interest of some researchers in the field have been considered. Regarding the environment, variables such as the physical situation, the ambiance and the social interaction have been considered; for the product the eating reference unit proposed by Rozin & Tuorila (1993), the presentation and the preparation of the product have been investigated; for the consumer her/his psychological status, past experiences and beliefs, products’ familiarity and involvement have been explored. Finally, for the task, the experimental procedures, instrumental measurements, the attention demand to perform the task and the incentives have been included.
Effects of context and contextual variables on consumers’ hedonic judgement
In the following section, a review of the contextual variables classification and their effects on consumers’ hedonic judgement is presented. The work done by Sester (2013) has set the bases for this review and it has been completed with recent research on context studies, and the contextual variables of interest.
Contextual variables: environment
Several studies have reported differences in consumers’ hedonic judgements of a same product in varying environments (we will consider the environment as the physical context) which include variables such as the ambiance and social interaction (Boutrolle, Arranz, Rogeaux, & Delarue, 2005; Edwards, Meiselman, Edwards, & Lesher, 2003; King, Weber, Meiselman, & Lv, 2004). Those differences have been associated to higher liking scores and discrimination when consumers taste products in more natural conditions. However, those results are not conclusive.
3.1.1. Factors related to the ambiance such as the colors (Cho et al., 2015; Sester et al., 2013; Spence, Velasco, & Knoeferle, 2014), decoration (Bell, Meiselman, Pierson, & Reeve,1994) and sounds (Spence & Shankar, 2010) have been pointed out as some of the causal factors for the changing in food perception though cross modal interactions.
3.1.2. Moreover, social interaction within a particular environment has also shown to modulate consumers’ behaviors in different ways, specially depending on the degree of familiarity among consumers (Di Monaco, Giacalone, Pepe, Masi, & Cavella, 2014; Robinson & Field, 2015). However, no clear evidences are found as regards consumers’ hedonic judgement.
Environment-related variables may modulate consumers’ hedonic judgements. However, how those environmental variables affect consumer hedonic evaluation is still unclear as there is no standardization in the way they should be used. Moreover, the interaction between several environmental variables at a time may occur being difficult to disentangle the causal relation between consumers’ hedonic judgement and one specific environmental factor. Additionally, we may consider that consumers’ expectations towards a particular physical context may also differ, affecting in turn consumers’ hedonic perception (Köster, 2003). Hence, this may affect the comparison between context studies and the generalization of results from one context to another.
For further discussion about the effect of environmental variables the reader is directed to Sester (2013). Moreover, the review carried out by Cruwys, Bevelander, & Hermans (2015) about the social influence on consumers’ behavior is also recommended.
Contextual variables: product
When we eat or drink we formulate conscious and unconscious judgements about the product. The product itself, its organoleptic characteristics, are going to influence consumers’ perception. However, there are other variables such as the quantity of the food and its presentation that are going to impact consumers’ hedonic judgement, for example through the mechanisms of satiation (Meillon, Thomas, Havermans, Pénicaud, & Brondel, 2013) or cross modal interactions (Zellner, Loss, Zearfoss, & Remolina, 2014).
Product-related variables include all the contextual characteristics that define the product beyond its sensory properties – from the quantity of food tested (referred to as the eating reference unit) to the type and number of other foods offered (or not) in combination to the evaluated product, but also the way the food is presented and the process of its preparation.
3.2.1. The eating reference unit is a concept defined by Rozin & Tuorila (1993) that refers to the size of the tested food (bite, dish, meal) over time. Each reference unit has a different level of complexity, temporal and spatial importance as well as research application. For example, in consumer tests participants usually taste a bite of a product in a short period of time while a meal involves more complex elements and it demands a longer period of tasting (Hyde & Witherly, 1993).
3.2.2. Combinations of foods are rarely seen in laboratory contexts, where the studied food products are generally evaluated as single items (bite or dish) rather than as part of a meal. However, several studies have shown that products evaluated as part of a meal were higher rated than individual items (King, Meiselman, Hottenstein, Work, & Cronk, 2007; King et al., 2004). The definition of “meal” is vague and depends on the researchers’ orientation. Meals are food eaten as part of a structured event, following rules of combination and sequence; however, snacks are unstructured food events which do not follow any rules concerning time, place or sequence (Pliner, Bell, Road, Bell, & Meiselman, 2004). In this case, we may consider that depending on the event (meal or snack) the hedonic judgment and behavior may differ (De Graaf et al., 2005; King et al., 2004).
Regarding the rules of combination and sequence, most of the research on eating behavior has focused on food items instead of food combinations. Nevertheless, in the last fifteen years, researchers have shown that suitable food combinations result in more pleasant recipes, thus in higher overall liking scores (Elzerman, Hoek, van Boekel, & Luning, 2015; Pagliarini, Gabbiadini, & Ratti, 2005); and others researchers have also studied how much of each meal component contributes to that hedonic judgement (Jimenez et al., 2015; Meiselman, 2006). Moreover, the sequence and appropriateness of mealtimes when evaluating products have also shown to influence hedonic judgements (Boutrolle & Delarue, 2009; Cardello, Schutz, Snow, & Lesher, 2000).
3.2.3. Regarding food presentation, we may include not only the dish but the cutlery. Several studies have shown the impact of cutlery on consumers’ hedonic perception and judgement in natural contexts (Piqueras-fiszman, Alcaide, Roura, & Spence, 2012; Piqueras-Fiszman, Laughlin, Miodownik, & Spence, 2012; Spence & Velasco, 2018). However, when looking at consumer tests, this variable is rarely considered.
With regard to the platting, the expression “you eat first with your eyes” easily explains how the visual composition of a product or a dish may affect consumers’ perception so, consumers’ judgement. Some researchers have shown their interest on the effect of subtle changes in the visual presentation of a dish on flavor perception and consumers’ liking. Zampollo, Kniffin, Wansink, & Shimizu (2012) showed the effect of food presentation on children preferences by modifying the number of items and their distribution on a plate in a school. Zellner et al., (2011) showed that a neatness presentation increased consumers’ liking and also their Willingness to Pay (WTP), whereas Michel, Velasco, Fraemohs, & Spence, 2015 and Michel, Velasco, Gatti, & Spence (2014) found opposite results.
Within this variable, Sester (2013) also include packaging and labelling. The role of information has shown to influence consumers’ beliefs and expectations modifying consumers’ hedonic judgements and behaviors (Bernard, Duke, & Albrecht, 2019; Fernandes et al., 2016; Jo & Lusk, 2018; Mcfadden & Lusk, 2015). The fact of priming over a particular product aspect frames consumer evaluation, and then consumers’ perception as certain characteristics of the product become more salience.
3.2.4. The concept of food preparation has been widely used in the scientific literature referring to different meanings ranging from the way consumers taste products to the actual preparation method or culinary technique, the presentation of food samples in the laboratory (Siret & Issanchou, 2000) and the served temperature (Cardello & Maller, 1982; Kähkönen, Tuorila, & Hyvönen, 1995).
According to Delarue & Boutrolle (2010), individual food preparation is involved in the formulation of the hedonic judgement. Several studies have shown a direct effect on liking and products’ discrimination when consumers have the freedom to taste and prepare the products according to their own consumption habits (Hathaway & Simons, 2017; Posri, Macfie, & Henson, 2001). However, little research has been carried out in laboratory contexts.
Food preparation as culinary techniques or methods has also proved to modify the perceived sensory properties of a product, thus the hedonic judgement. A product prepared at home may differ from another one prepared at the restaurant or at the laboratory contributing to the negative correlations between the hedonic judgements at laboratory and natural consumption contexts (De Graaf et al., 2005). Moreover, the culinary preparation seems to be related to consumers’ expectations and preference for products or dishes in particular contexts (Edwards, 2013).
Product-related variables show to have an impact on consumers’ hedonic judgement that goes from a simple bite to the preparation of the product. When looking at context studies, especially at consumer tests, special attention should be put on each of those variables. If the environment has already shown to influence in a certain way consumers’ hedonic judgement, the fact of include variability in the way products are tested may induce higher differences in how consumers perceive the product. In general, in consumer tests small portion sizes of the products are presented usually in plastic cups and dishes. They are not included as part of a meal or an eating situation and they are served ready to consume, so no preparation from the consumer side is needed. All those aspects have shown to matter for consumers when they formulate a judgement. Therefore, they cannot be neglected.
Contextual variables: consumer
Consumers’ physiological, psychological status and food habits are some of the consumer-related variables that have shown to influence consumers’ hedonic judgements. In this section only the variables treated in this thesis and those not examined by Sester (2013) are presented. However, for further discussion about the effect of consumer-related variables such physiological or cultural variables the reader is directed to Sester (2013).
Within the consumer-related variables consumers’ emotions, mood, expectations, beliefs and past experiences, product familiarity, and consumers’ involvement have been considered.
3.3.1. Consumers’ emotions and their relation with consumer hedonic judgement and behavior have become one of the most explored areas of research in the past years (Jaeger et al., 2017; Meiselman, 2015). Emotions do not have a consensual meaning within the scientific community. However, it is agreed the idea that emotions have “multiple components, including physiological arousal, motivation, expressive motor behavior, action tendencies and subjective feeling”, and that they are characterized by “a synchronized response, rapidity of change, behavioral impact, high intensity and relatively short duration” (Spinelli, Masi, Dinnella, Zoboli, & Monteleone, 2014, p.110). Piqueras-Fiszman, Giboreau, & Spence (2013) associated different emotions to different product categories and several evoked contexts. These authors showed that consumption context and context-product appropriateness impact consumers’ emotional associations. Neutral categories such as fruits showed more stable emotions along different contextual situations while categories such as chocolates or chips were related to an emotional eating strategy or satisfy cravings state. Gutjar et al., (2015), and Köster & Mojet (2015) discussed about the need of emotions to predict consumers’ choices as liking ratings often fail when envisaging market success or are insufficient to predict products acceptance.
3.3.2. The effect of consumers’ mood on their hedonic judgement and vice versa has been also shown through consumers’ memories and expectations (Köster & Mojet, 2015). Considering the effect of mood on food, in the study performed by Platte, Herbert, Pauli,
Breslin (2013) the intensity of sucrose and quinine as indicators of sweetness and bitterness perception was positively correlated to depression and anxious moods; whereas when studying the effect of food on mood results showed how carbohydrate and sweet food have a positively impact on consumers’ mood (Macht & Dettmer, 2006).
3.3.3. Regarding consumers’ expectations, several studies have shown an interaction between expectations and consumers’ perception, judgement and behavior (Delwiche, 2012; Schifferstein, Wehrle, & Carbon, 2019). Expectations influence consumers’ hedonic judgement trough top-down processes (Lee et al., 2006). When consumers taste a product they tend to compare it to personal standards, mental representations, and from there elaborate a judgement. Effects of assimilation or contrast may then occur modifying the hedonic judgement depending on the distance between the actual perception and consumers’ personal standard (Cardello, 1995; Davidenko et al., 2015). This is an important variable as consumers’ expectations may also differ depending on the environmental variables. Thus, consumers’ personal standard may vary depending on whether they are in a consumer tests or at home or at a restaurant, and in turn the differences in hedonic judgements among contexts.
3.3.4. Beliefs and past experiences, have proved to impact consumers’ hedonic judgement and behavior (Bernard & Liu, 2017; Jo & Lusk, 2018; van den Heuvel, van Trijp, Gremmen, Jan Renes, & van Woerkum, 2006). Beliefs “are statements of real or perceived knowledge about a product or object” (Kempen et al., 2017, p. 246) ruled by different cognitive process responsible of their updating when consumers face a new information (Mcfadden & Lusk, 2015). They are related to consumers’ past experiences with a product or a situation which may help to explain contexts differences when comparing consumers’ hedonic judgements (Köster, 2003). When it comes to context studies it is important to keep in mind that consumers’ beliefs and past experiences towards a particular context may influence consumers’ perception. In the case of consumer tests, there is lack of information regarding what consumers think about this type of contexts. Nevertheless, this information could help to explain in a certain way contexts differences.
3.3.5. Consumers’ product familiarity has also shown to impact consumers’ hedonic judgement. Most of consumer tests are performed with regular consumers of the target product. However, when looking at context studies, unfamiliar products have shown to be more context-dependent than familiar ones (Giacalone et al., 2015; Kim et al., 2015).
3.3.6. The lack of consumers’ involvement in consumer tests has also shown to influence consumers’ hedonic judgement (Köster, 2009). Brien & Toms (2008) describes that consumers are motivated to participate in a task when they found the experience enjoyable and engaging. Recent studies have been interested in this area showing positive correlations between consumers’ involvement in more natural contexts and products discrimination (Bangcuyo et al., 2015; Boutrolle, Delarue, Köster, Aranz, & Danzart, 2009; Hathaway & Simons, 2017). The fact that consumers are not involved in the task, as occurs with the preparation of the product, may reduce their interest, impacting on their hedonic judgement.
Consumer-related variables have shown to influence consumers’ hedonic judgement. Emotions and mood have shown to influence the way in which products are perceived. Moreover, those feelings may change not only depending on the product but on the context as it occurs with consumers’ expectations and beliefs. Past experiences and product familiarity have also shown to be context-dependent. Therefore, when comparing context studies special attention should be put on those variables that may help to explain context differences. In consumer tests’ it is needed to understand what consumer think and expect to find in this type of context. Context studies compare not only hedonic responses but consumers’ food experiences, so defining those variables may help to explain the differences between controlled conditions and natural consumption contexts.
Contextual variables: task
The evaluation task is not usually considered as a contextual variable. However, when consumers formulate an explicit hedonic judgement it means that an evaluation task has been performed. Moreover, regarding the problematic of ecological validity about consumer tests’ data, it is important to understand if the task performed in a context is representative and relevant in the context of interest to ensure the ecological validity of the results (Galiñanes Plaza et al., 2019). Hence, the evaluation task performed within the environment of consumption has been considered as a contextual variable.
The effects of the evaluation task on consumers’ judgement have been further studied by psychologists and behavioral economics (Ariely, Loewenstein, & Prelec, 2006; Harrisson & List, 2004; Kahneman, 2002). The framing of the evaluation task has shown to have a significant impact in the way that consumers perceive a specific task and integrate the information to formulate a judgement (Köster, 2009; Köster, 2003). When consumers receive the instructions to perform a particular task, the type of information given, the amount of given information and the way it is presented may drive the attention of consumers to particular features (Kahneman, 2002; Lee et al., 2006). This attention placed on the task may bias the actual perception and judgement of the consumer, so the reliability of the results (Dijksterhuis et al., 2005; Köster, 2003).
When eating or drinking, consumers make spontaneous judgements usually related to the fact they like or dislike a product. In consumer tests, hedonic evaluation task can involve global judgements that refer to a synthetic evaluation task or more detailed judgements, that refers to an analytical evaluation task. The latter involves the description of specific sensory characteristics of the products. This, may led to a more cognitive demand due to the attention consumer may place on it. This may then modulate the frame of consumers’ perception, and in turn consumers’ hedonic judgement.
The act of eating involves different cognitive processes (System 1) than the act of evaluating (System 2). Considering that, the features of the evaluation task as the experimental procedures and measurements tools (questionnaires, scales) may also influence consumers’ judgement. In fact, several studies have shown that depending on the number of questions (Prescott, Lee, & Kim, 2011), the order in which they are asked (Earthy, MacFie, & Hedderley, 1996) and the way they are formulated (Jaeger et al., 2013; Popper, Rosenstock, Schraidt, & Kroll, 2004) may influence consumers’ hedonic judgement:
a. Number of questions: higher number of questions about specific sensory product characteristics may inhibit or distort the cognitive representation of synthetic characteristics of the product (Prescott et al., 2011). That is that consumers focus on product characteristics instead of the global liking of the product. However, controversial results are found related to this issue (Jaeger et al., 2013).
Order of questions: Related to the previous factor, the order in which questions appears seems to also affect consumers’ hedonic judgement. When a synthetic question such as the overall liking of a product is asked after the evaluation of sensory characteristics, the overall liking scores tend to decrease especially after the evaluation of negative attributes (Earthy et al., 1996). Consumers may concentrate their attention to those specific attributes modulating their perception of the product and then, their judgement. However, when the synthetic question is formulated before, those effects are not observed.
Formulation: as described before, depending on the way questions are formulated consumers’ attention towards the product and its characteristics may vary. The salience of certain sensory characteristics may catch the attention of the consumers who are going to focus their evaluation and posterior judgement on those characteristics (Jaeger et al., 2013; Popper et al., 2004).
Moreover, research has been carried out on the use of hedonic scaling and the outcomes of those measurements tools (Cardello, 2017; Lim, 2011). Cardello (2017) insists on the fact that attention should be place in the way hedonic scales are selected, the end-point anchors established and the framing of the questionnaire set. All of that is going to impact the way in which consumers are going to evaluate a product and the way in which the researcher is going to analyze and interpret the data.
Table of contents :
GENERAL INTRODUCTION
PART A. LITERATURE REVIEW AND RESEARCH HYPOTHESES
Chapter 1. The effects of context on consumer’s judgement
1. Consumer hedonic judgement and behavior
2. Context and contextual variables: definitions
3. Effects of context and contextual variables on consumers’ hedonic judgement
3.1. Contextual variables: environment
3.2. Contextual variables: product
3.3. Contextual variables: consumer
3.4. Contextual variables: task
4. Conclusions
Chapter 2. Looking for ecological validity
1. Introduction
2. The pursuit of ecological validity through contextual methodologies (Article 1)
Chapter 3. Theoretical framework: Prospect theory
1. Prospect theory
2. Framing effects and reference point
3. Loss-aversion
4. Applying prospect theory to sensory and consumer studies
4.1. Expectations: confirmations and disconfirmations as gains and losses
5. Applying prospect theory to explain contexts effects on consumers’ hedonic judgement
Chapter 4. Problematic and Research Hypotheses
PART B. PRELIMINARY STUDIES
Chapter 5. Standardisation of product-related variables in context studies
1. Preliminary study: « Hedonic evaluation of Lebanese Tabbouleh in different contexts »
1.1. Introduction
1.2. Material and methods
1.3. Results
1.4. Discussion
1.5. Conclusion
Chapter 6. The impact of food-related information in natural consumption contexts
1. The experimental cafe: an exploratory study on consumers’ behavior towards food information in a natural consumption context
1.1. Introduction
1.2. Material and methods
1.3. Overview of the results
1.4. Discussion
1.5. Conclusion
Conclusions PART B
PART C. CONSUMER-RELATED VARIABLES
Chapter 7. Consumers’ mindset on consumption contexts
1. Introduction
2. Consumers’ representations about food in different consumption contexts (Article 2)
3. Supplementary data
4. Conclusion
PART D. EVALUATION TASK-RELATED VARIABLES
Chapter 8. The role of the evaluation task on context studies
1. Introduction
2. Hedonic responses sensitivity to variations in the evaluation task and culinary preparation in a natural consumption context (Article 3)
3. Limitations and methodological aspects
4. Conclusion
PART E. PRODUCT-RELATED VARIABLES
Chapter 9. Framing the evaluation context
1. Introduction
2. Eating location as a reference point: differences in hedonic evaluation of dishes according to consumption situation (Article 4)
2.1. Article 4 Limitations
2.2. Article 4 Conclusion
3. Associations between prior expectations towards meal experience and hedonic responses in the restaurant: the role of information (Article 5)
3.1. Article 5 Conclusion
Conclusions PART E
GENERAL DISCUSSION
Introduction
Learnings from the experimental studies
1. Classical approach: contextual variables
1.1. Advantages and Limitations of studying hedonic responses in natural consumption contexts
1.2. The influence of mental representations on consumer experience and hedonic evaluation
2. Prospect theory approach: evaluation task and reference points
2.1. The influence of the evaluation task on consumer hedonic responses
2.2. Framework of reference on consumer hedonic evaluation
New questions raised by our experimental studies: Perspectives
1. Product categories: Standardized products versus products that require preparation
2. Consumers mindset
3. Food value and consumer hedonic evaluation
4. Prospect theory and consumer hedonic evaluation
CONCLUSION
REFERENCES
APPENDIX
LIST OF FIGURES
LIST OF TABLES
RESUME EN FRANÇAIS
