| dc.description.popularabstract | The overall purpose of this dissertation is to gain a deeper understanding of the reasons behind consumers' evaluation and consumption of functional food. Functional foods are food products that have been enriched to make them healthier or to prevent diseases. They are thus a manufactured rather than a natural food product. Functional foods are present across food categories, such as the dairy, confectionery, soft drink, bakery, and baby food categories, and the global market for functional food is expected to reach USD 275 billion by 2025. This dissertation presents three papers that extend the current knowledge on (a) why people choose to eat functional food and (b) who these people are. The first paper investigated the antecedents of consumers’ attitudes and intentions to eating functional foods applying an extended theory of planned behavior. The results demonstrate that self-efficacy, or one's confidence in the ability to consume functional foods regularly, is the most important explanatory factor of intention. Utilitarian eating values were further strongly and positively associated with attitude toward the consumption of functional foods. In contrast, consumers' hedonic eating values were weakly and negatively associated with attitude. The implications are that people more concerned about the 'functionality' of food evaluate functional food consumption more positively. Oppositely, the more people are concerned about hedonic features of food, such as the taste and appearance, the less positive they are toward the consumption of functional food. The food industry is thus advised to improve the hedonic value or attributes of functional foods to commercially succeed. The second paper investigated the relationships between the big five personality traits (openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism), time perspectives, and consumption of functional foods. The results demonstrate that both a future (consideration of future consequences of current food choices) and present time perspective (consideration of immediate consequences of current food choices) are positively related to the consumption of functional foods. None of the big five personality traits directly influenced consumption of functional food, but conscientiousness, agreeableness, and neuroticism did, however, influence consumption frequency by their relationships with future time perspective. This implies that being conscientious, agreeable, or neurotic influences consumption of functional food because these personality traits are associated with future time perspective—that is, being considerate of future consequences when making food choices. The results support the notion of future time perspective being a mechanism through which broad personality traits can influence specific behaviors. The mediating role of future time perspective thus provides an explanation as to why some personality traits are associated with higher consumption frequency of functional foods. The third paper aimed to identify, describe, and compare consumer segments based on food- and health-related values and traits and test whether the segments have different attitudes, intentions, and consumption patterns. Cluster analysis was used to identify homogeneous consumer segments based on food innovativeness, food self-control, hedonic eating values, convenience orientation, health importance, and weight management concern. The three consumer segments identified were the careless, self-controlled, and convenience-oriented. Subsequent analysis of variance demonstrated how the three segments differed in their propensity to consume functional food and their attitudes and intentions regarding functional food consumption. Of the three segments, the convenience-oriented were the most inclined to consume functional foods, had a pronounced convenience orientation, and were markedly concerned about weight gain. The results provide new insights into the underlying motives and goals of consumers susceptible to consuming functional foods and the individual combinations of values and traits that distinguish the different consumer segments. Learning more about what characterizes the consumer of functional foods is a prerequisite for product development and effective marketing efforts, and these insights should thus be of great importance to functional food marketers who can tailor their marketing strategy to match the various consumer profiles. The combined results of this research provide new insights into Norwegian consumers’ evaluation and consumption of functional food. It demonstrates how important social cognitive antecedents—as well as individual differences in personality traits, personal values, and temporal frame—influence behavioral tendencies toward functional food. It further identifies consumer profiles with dissimilar combinations of food-related traits and values and demonstrates and explain how they differ in their attitudes, intentions, and consumption of functional food. | en_US |
| dc.relation.haspart | <p>Paper 1: Nystrand, B.T. & Olsen, S.O. (2020). Consumers’ attitudes and intentions toward consuming functional foods in Norway. <i>Food Quality and Preference, 80</i>, 103827. Also available in Munin at <a href=https://hdl.handle.net/10037/16630>https://hdl.handle.net/10037/16630</a>.
<p>Paper 2: Nystrand, B.T., Olsen, S.O. & Tudoran, A.A. (2021). Individual differences in functional food consumption: The role of time perspective and the Big Five personality traits. <i>Appetite, 156</i>, 104979. Also available in Munin at <a href=https://hdl.handle.net/10037/19534>https://hdl.handle.net/10037/19534</a>.
<p>Paper 3: Nystrand, B.T. & Olsen, S.O. (2021). Relationships between functional food consumption and individual traits and values: A segmentation approach. <i>Journal of Functional Foods, 86</i>, 104736. Also available in Munin at <a href=https://hdl.handle.net/10037/23148>https://hdl.handle.net/10037/23148</a>. | en_US |
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