The influence of the pursuit of meaning and pleasure on food choices

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2024-07-02

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en

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This research is a follow-up of the study The Pursuit of Meaning and the Preference for Less Expensive Options by Mead and Williams (2022). The purpose of this study was to investigate how the pursuit of meaning and pleasure influences people's food choices. This research expected that the pursuit of both goals leads to a preference for less expensive, and therefore less healthy food. Through an online experiment, results were obtained that were useful for this study. A total of 223 respondents were randomly assigned to one of the manipulations meaning or pleasure which made it a between-subjects design. This form of research made it possible to compare the effects of the two groups on the dependent variable less healthy food choices. In addition, this study examined whether people believe in the intuition healthy = expensive previously found by Haws et al. (2017). It was examined whether this intuition had a reinforcing effect on the relationship of meaning and pleasure on preference for unhealthier food. Results showed that none of the hypotheses were supported, and that people choose more expensive and thus healthier foods when pursuing meaning and pleasure. The moderator also did not have a reinforcing relationship as expected. However, no significant relationships were found for all these effects. The discussion focuses on how it is possible that the effects are not significant and why the findings differ from the study by Mead and Williams (2022). The study ends with a conclusion, managerial implications, and ideas for further research.

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Faculteit der Managementwetenschappen

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