Emotions and food waste behavior: Do habit and facilitating conditions matter?

Abstract

Food waste is currently a critical global issue, even more so because waste has continued to increase despite various reduction initiatives. Deeper research insights into why people waste food are needed to formulate effective strategies to counter such behavior. This study investigated the drivers of food delivery app (FDA) users’ attitudes against food waste and their behavioral intentions to reduce it. Specifically, the study employed the theory of interpersonal behavior (TIB) to explicate the role of emotions in driving attitude and intentions. Data collected from active FDA users (N = 561) were analyzed to test the proposed associations. The other two key variables in the TIB framework – habit, operationalized in this study as ordering more food than necessary to take advantage of special offers, and facilitating conditions, captured through belief that food ordered via FDAs often goes to waste – are conceptualized and examined as moderation variables. The results confirmed the positive association of attitude and negative emotions with intentions, as well as the positive association of negative emotions and attitude. However, the negative association of positive emotions was confirmed with attitude only. In addition, attitude mediated the negative emotions-intentions association. Finally, the analysis revealed that the variable belief that food ordered via FDA often goes to waste moderated the association of positive and negative emotions with intentions. The findings of the study offer significant inferences.