Does personality make a difference? Exploring the connections between the big five personality traits and entomophagy among Japanese consumers

Abstract

Because of their comparatively high nutritious and various environmental advantages compared to other livestock, the academic and public interest in edible insects increased greatly. In previous studies, personality traits have been recognized as important factors in shaping consumers’ food choices and evaluations. However, the exploration of the connections between personality traits and entomophagy remains an area with limited research. With a valid sample size of 284 Japanese consumers, we investigated the relationships between the big five personality traits and attitudes towards entomophagy (i.e., disgust with and interest in entomophagy). The analysis results indicate that the big five personality traits influence consumer attitudes towards entomophagy. More specifically, while conscientiousness and neuroticism present positive correlations with the disgust, openness presents a negative correlation with the disgust. Similarly, while openness presents a positive correlation with the interest, conscientiousness presents a negative correlation with the interest. Besides, agreeableness and extraversion show insignificant connections with both attitudes. We also examined gender differences and found that the correlations between the big five personality traits and the attitudes differ between males and females.