Psychological determinants of consumer reactions to food risk , communication: case of potential contamination of meat and fish products

Abstract

Despite numerous efforts to guarantee the safety of food products at the retail level, various incidents related to the alleged presence of various substances in food products (e.g. food-borne microbial pathogens, residues of pesticides and hormones, aflatoxins and dioxin etc.) that might have detrimental effects on consumer health are frequently occurred. These attract media attention, and in turn, cause anxiety among the consumers and instigate them to reduce the consumption of the allegedly contaminated product/s. The purpose of this study was to examine this economic problem, i.e. the socio-demographic and psychological determinants of consumer reactions to food risk messages for the case of potential contamination of meat and fish products. There were 10 determinants identified in consumer psychology theoiy used to model the consumer behaviour in this respect, including: (1) RA - risk avoidance; (2) IS - information seeking; (3) RP - risk perception; (4) AR - affective response; (5) OE - outcome expectation; (6) SE - self-efficacy; (7) N I - need for information; (8) PS - perceived susceptibility; (9) TS - trust in food safety, and (10) E X - consumer experience. These were incorporated into a structured questionnaire, and which was administered with a sample of 300 consumers selected randomly at 10 well-known supermarkets in the Kiribathgoda area in March and April 2007. The participants were asked to imagine and/or callback a situation involving contamination of meat or fish they purchase and report on how they would react behaviorally when it occurs. The sample consists of women (59%), people less, than 40 years (68%), live in urban areas (58%), educate up to A/L (46%), married (53%), an income ranging from Rs. 10,000 to Rs. 20,000 (56%), and middle level employment (73%). The Pearson Correlation Coefficients and Simple Regression Analyses were employed to analyze data. The results suggest that in the aftermath of such an incident majority of consumers would allegedly avoid the risks by not consuming meat (85%) and fish (78%) for sometime, and seek additional information (79%). The results suggest that many psychological determinants were significantly correlated with others (e.g. RA with IS, RP, SE, PS; IS with SE; NE with RP, TS; RP with OE, SE, PS, TS, EX; OE with SE, PS, and SE with PS). It was also found a significant correlation between the socio-demographic characteristics of consumers and these psychological determinants