CONSUMER UNDERSTANDING AND USE OF HEALTH INFORMATION ON PRODUCT LABELS: MARKETING IMPLICATIONS FOR FUNCTIONAL FOOD

In recent years, the numbers of functional foods being developed and subjected to scientific evaluation have increased substantially. The main characteristic of functional foods that distinguishes them from conventional foods is the potential health benefit, which can be considered to be a credence attribute of product quality. Because this characteristic cannot be easily assessed even after consumption, an asymmetric information environment for health benefits has emerged where producers have more information than consumers. Thus the government intervenes by regulating the provision of health information on product labels in order to avoid potential market failures. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently amended the way health claims on labels of conventional food and dietary supplements are managed. The new policy on qualified health claims allows claims to be made based on different levels of supporting scientific evidence. The policy goal is to encourage firms to make accurate, science-based claims about the health benefits of their products while helping consumers prevent disease and improve their health through sound dietary decisions using nutrition information. This marks a break from the previous environment where a lengthy approval process was argued to provide a road block for food firms wanting to market functional foods based on emerging evidence of diet to health links. This study has two objectives. First, to determine how consumers use health and nutrition information on food labels to form judgments about product quality, using the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) as a theoretical framework. Second, to examine whether consumers can differentiate various levels of health claims, specifically the new qualified language, approved by FDA in 2003. It is interesting to determine whether consumers understand the different levels of scientific evidence supporting such claims and whether they can distinguish between the disclaimer languages used. Understanding how consumers use health and nutrition information on product labels has implications for both public policy and food manufacturers who use health claims as tools to market their products e.g., functional foods. This study used a still hypothetical functional food product a wheat cracker containing soy protein. It has been shown that soluble fiber and isoflavones, which can be found in wheat and soy products, respectively, independently help prevent the risk of several maladies including cancer and heart disease. A 5 (claim information on the front label a control condition and the four levels of qualified health claim) x 2 (information on Nutrition Facts) between-subjects factorial design was applied. Five versions of claim information were manipulated, including a control condition and four levels of qualified health claim. Each claim contained explicit relationships between nutrients and diseases i.e., isoflavones - heart disease and soluble fiber - cancers, but had different disclaimers explaining the level of scientific evidence supporting the claim. A report card was also included to inform consumers about the various claim levels, ranging from level A to D. Information on the Nutrition Facts panel was manipulated representing a "healthy" and an "unhealthy" version. Three hundred and seventy-two undergraduate students participated in the study, receiving extra credit for a Marketing class. Several multi-item scales are used as dependent variables, including attitude toward the product, buying intention, strength of evaluation about scientific studies to support claim, confidence about claim statement, perception of product's health benefit, and information search. A univariate analysis of variance (ANOVA) is conducted to test main and interaction effects among independent variables on a dependent variable. The results of this study suggest that consumers pay attention to information from all sources including the front label and Nutrition Facts panel. Even though it is shown that consumers react more positively to versions with health claims, there is no evidence to support the first hypothesis that consumers are more careful in evaluating product quality when health and nutrition information is present on the front package. Nevertheless, consumers are able to differentiate healthy products from unhealthy products, regardless of the presence of health and nutrition information on the front label. This study examines whether consumers understand and can distinguish various levels of qualified health claims. Although evidence suggests that consumers react differently to various claim levels, it is not clear whether people understand differences in the scientific support of these claims, as described in the disclaimer. Despite an increasing trend in attitude and purchase intention from the weakest claim (level D) to the strongest claim (level A), there is no statistically significant difference among claim levels when using measures of evaluation of strength of scientific studies, confidence about claim information, and perception of product's health benefit. From the public policy perspective, the results of this study can help determine how consumers evaluate health and nutrition information. It is shown that consumers do not overlook information from other parts of the label specifically the Nutrition Facts panel and that the presence of health and nutrition information on the front label is not likely to mislead consumers. The key issue here that needs further investigation is how to effectively provide information on the front label to consumers. FDA's goal is to permit the use of more, better, easily understood, and up-to-date scientific information about how dietary choices can affect consumers' health on food labels. It is important to identify optimal levels of qualified health claims, perhaps only two levels instead of four levels, so that consumers can distinguish and understand differences in terms of the scientific support for the claims and product benefits. As for the food industry, the results of this study can help food manufacturers decide what level of health and nutrition information they should provide to consumers. In addition to understanding the petitioning procedures for different claims, food firms must determine which, how, and when consumers understand and use health information in order to find the most efficient marketing communication channels.Health Economics and Policy,

Thought Calibration: How Thinking Just the Right Amount Increases One’s Influence and Appeal

Previous research suggests that people draw inferences about their attitudes and preferences based on their own thoughtfulness. The current research explores how observing other individuals make decisions more or less thoughtfully can shape perceptions of those individuals and their decisions, and ultimately impact observers’ willingness to be influenced by them. Three studies suggest that observing others make more (versus less) thoughtful decisions generates more positive reactions when a choice is difficult, but more negative reactions when a choice is easy. In essence, people perceive the quality of others’ decisions to be greater when other individuals engage in the right amount of thinking for the situation. These assessments then affect observers’ own decisions and openness to influence

Consumer conviction and commitment: An appraisal-based framework for attitude certainty

This paper explores consumers' commitment to and conviction about their beliefs in the form of attitude certainty. Based on a review of past research, we present a new framework for understanding attitude certainty and how consumers' attitude certainty is shaped by their resisting or yielding to persuasive messages, or even by their reflections on the evidence supporting their attitudes. We propose that attitude certainty is formed and changed largely through an attribution-based reasoning process linked to a finite set of distinct appraisals. Our framework is used to both organize past research and offer guidance for future research endeavors. In addition, we distinguish our framework of appraisal-based attitude certainty from past models in attitudes and persuasion research that have referenced or taken note of the attitude certainty construct. Implications and future directions for the study of consumer behavior are discussed

Power and persuasion: processes by which perceived power can influence evaluative judgments

This paper is not the copy of record and may not exactly replicate the authoritative document published in the APA journal. Please do not copy or cite without author's permission. The final article is available, upon publication, at: http://doi.org/10.1037/gpr0000119The present review focuses on how power—as a perception regarding the self, the source of the message, or the message itself—affects persuasion. Contemporary findings suggest that perceived power can increase or decrease persuasion depending on the circumstances and thus might result in both short-term and long-term consequences for behavior. Given that perceptions of power can produce different, and even opposite, effects on persuasion, it might seem that any relationship is possible and thus prediction is elusive or impossible. In contrast, the present review provides a unified perspective to understand and organize the psychological literature on the relationship between perceived power and persuasion. To accomplish this objective, present review identifies distinct mechanisms by which perceptions of power can influence persuasion and discusses when these mechanisms are likely to operate. In doing so, this article provides a structured approach for studying power and persuasion via antecedents, consequences, underlying psychological processes, and moderators. Finally, the article also discusses how power can affect evaluative judgments more broadl

Addressing moderated mediation hypotheses: Theory, methods, and prescriptions

This article provides researchers with a guide to properly construe and conduct analyses of conditional indirect effects, commonly known as moderated mediation effects. We disentangle conflicting definitions of moderated mediation and describe approaches for estimating and testing a variety of hypotheses involving conditional indirect effects. We introduce standard errors for hypothesis testing and construction of confidence intervals in large samples but advocate that researchers use bootstrapping whenever possible. We also describe methods for probing significant conditional indirect effects by employing direct extensions of the simple slopes method and Johnson-Neyman technique for probing significant interactions. Finally, we provide an SPSS macro to facilitate the implementation of the recommended asymptotic and bootstrapping methods. We illustrate the application of these methods with an example drawn from the Michigan Study of Adolescent Life Transitions, showing that the indirect effect of intrinsic student interest on mathematics performance through teacher perceptions of talent is moderated by student math self-concept

From primed construct to motivated behavior: validation processes in goal pursuit

When posting or re-using the article, you should provide a link/URL from the article posted to the SAGE Journals Online site where the article is published: http://online.sagepub.com and please make the following acknowledgment: "The final, definitive version of this paper has been published in , Vol/Issue, Month/Year by SAGE Publications Ltd, All rights reserved. © [The Author(s)]"Past research has found that primes can automatically initiate unconscious goal striving. Recent models of priming have suggested that this effect can be moderated by validation processes. According to a goal-validation perspective, primes should cause changes in one’s motivational state to the extent people have confidence in the prime-related mental content. Across three experiments, we provided the first direct empirical evidence for this goal-validation account. Using a variety of goal priming manipulations (cooperation vs. competition, achievement, and self-improvement vs. saving money) and validity inductions (power, ease, and writing about confidence), we demonstrated that the impact of goal primes on behavior occurs to a greater extent when conditions foster confidence (vs. doubt) in mental contents. Indeed, when conditions foster doubt, goal priming effects are eliminated or counter to the implications of the prime. The implications of these findings for research on goal priming and validation processes are discussed.The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was supported in part by NSF Grant BCS-0847834 (to R.E.P.) and by Spanish grant PSI2011-26212 (to P.B.)

On the practice of dichotomization of quantitative variables

The authors examine the practice of dichotomization of quantitative measures, wherein relationships among variables are examined after 1 or more variables have been converted to dichotomous variables by splitting the sample at some point on the scale(s) of measurement. A common form of dichotomization is the median split, where the independent variable is split at the median to form high and low groups, which are then compared with respect to their means on the dependent variable. The consequences of dichotomization for measurement and statistical analyses are illustrated and discussed. The use of dichotomization in practice is described, and justifications that are offered for such usage are examined. The authors present the case that dichotomization is rarely defensible and often will yield misleading results

Use of the extreme groups approach: A critical reexamination and new recommendations

Analysis of continuous variables sometimes proceeds by selecting individuals on the basis of extreme scores of a sample distribution and submitting only those extreme scores to further analysis. This sampling method is known as the extreme groups approach (EGA). EGA is often used to achieve greater statistical power in subsequent hypothesis tests. However, there are several largely unrecognized costs associated with EGA that must be considered. The authors illustrate the effects EGA can have on power, standardized effect size, reliability, model specification, and the interpretability of results. Finally, the authors discuss alternative procedures, as well as possible legitimate uses of EGA. The authors urge researchers, editors, reviewers, and consumers to carefully assess the extent to which EGA is an appropriate tool in their own research and in that of others.This work was funded in part by National Institute on Drug Abuse Grant DA16883, awarded to Kristopher J. Preacher

Novel critical point drying (CPD) based preparation and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) imaging of protein specific molecularly imprinted polymers (HydroMIPs)

We report the transmission electron microscopy (TEM) imaging of a hydrogel-based molecularly imprinted polymer (HydroMIP) specific to the template molecule bovine haemoglobin (BHb). A novel critical point drying based sample preparation technique was employed to prepare the molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) samples in a manner that would facilitate the use of TEM to image the imprinted cavities, and provide an appropriate degree of both magnification and resolution to image polymer architecture in the <10 nm range. For the first time, polymer structure has been detailed that clearly displays molecularly imprinted cavities, ranging from 5-50 nm in size, that correlate (in terms of size) with the protein molecule employed as the imprinting template. The modified critical point drying sample preparation technique used may potentially play a key role in the imaging of all molecularly imprinted polymers, particularly those prepared in the aqueous phase