Environmental-friendly Eco-labeling Matters: Evidences From an ERPs Study.

Jia Jin,Xiaodong Dou,Liang Meng,Haihong Yu

doi:10.3389/fnhum.2018.00417

Abstract

Nowadays, the international community is becoming increasingly concerned about the sustainable utilization of natural resources. In order to protect the environment and reward sustainable practices, eco-labeling that signifies the environmental friendliness of the labeled food is already widely promoted in many regions around the world. Thus, it is of great importance for researchers to study consumers’ attitudes toward eco-labeled food as food is supposed to satisfy consumers’ needs. This study employed the event-related potentials (ERPs) approach to investigate consumers’ attitudes toward eco-labeled food by comparing their neural processing of visual stimuli depicting eco-labeled and non-labeled food. Our results showed that behaviorally, participants preferred to buy eco-labeled food rather than non-labeled one. At the neural level, we observed markedly smaller P2 and N2 amplitudes when pictures of eco-labeled food were presented. Furthermore, we also found that amplitudes of P2 were negatively correlated with participants’ purchase intention. Therefore, our current findings suggest that, while the environmental-friendly eco-labeling was not to one’s own interests, it might still be evocative, which induce consumers’ positive emotion, bring less cognitive conflict to the purchase decision-making and then result in a greater purchasing intention. This effect might be the result of the delivered value of social desirability.

Highlights

Environmental protection has become an important issue all over the world
By adopting the event-related potentials (ERPs) approach, the present study explored neurocognitive processes associated with consumers’ attitude and emotion toward eco-labeled food
A highlight of this study is that we explored consumers’ evaluation of environmental-beneficial eco-labeling and compared the neural differences between one’s processing of self- and others-beneficial food labels

Summary

Introduction

Environmental protection has become an important issue all over the world. The sustainable utilization of natural resources has claimed widespread attention from both researchers and practitioners. A series of policies and regulations have already been formulated for the protection of the environment and natural resources. One of the most important and effective policies is the set-up of standards for environmental-friendly labels, which will help rectify order of the food market by recognizing and rewarding sustainable practices and influencing the choices people make when buying food products. As food products are supposed to satisfy consumers’ needs, it is interesting and significant to promote eco-labeling by studying consumers’ preference toward eco-labeled food. Previous studies have shown that consumers generally hold positive attitudes toward eco-labeled products.

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Conclusion