Herbert L. Meiselman

Longitudinal measurement of three eating behavior scales during a period of change

Abstract British students were tested three times per year immediately after entering university on a battery of tests, including eating behavior scales (Variety Seeking Tendency Scale, Food Neophobia Scale, and the Restrained Eating scale of the Dutch Eating Behavior Questionnaire). Repeated testing indicated high stability of the measured eating behavior scales over the study period of 1–2 years. Thus, food attitudes remained stable even during a major period of change in peoples lives when young people left home. The stability of the average measures of the three eating behaviors scales indicates that groups can be characterized by their scores. There was no gender effect for Variety Seeking Tendency or Food Neophobia but there was for Restrained Eating, as previously reported. Test–retest correlations for the same subjects were generally in the range 0.6–0.8. The correlation between Variety Seeking Tendency Food Neophobia was −0.6.

Context and wine quality effects on consumers' mood, emotions, liking and willingness to pay for Australian Shiraz wines

This study investigated the effect of different contexts on consumers mood, product-evoked emotions, liking and willingness to pay for wine. Three consumer trials (n=114, 115, and 120) examined 3 different sample sets of 4 Australian commercial Shiraz wines. Each sample set was comprised of a high, medium-high, medium-low and low quality wine as designated by an expert panel. Wine consumers evaluated the same set of wines in the three different contexts, ranging from a highly-controlled laboratory setting to more realistic restaurant and at-home settings. Results showed that high quality wines were liked more and elicited more intense emotions of positive valence compared to wines of lower quality. Context effects were observed on emotions, but not on liking, indicating that although emotions and liking are correlated, the measurement of emotions can deliver additional information over liking. Tasting wine in the restaurant context evoked more intense positive emotions compared to the home and laboratory contexts. Participants mood before tasting the wines had a strong influence on consecutive product-evoked emotion ratings, but only weak influence on liking ratings. Furthermore, a strong relationship between wine-evoked emotions and willingness to pay was observed, showing that if a wine-evoked more intense emotion of positive valence e.g., contented, enthusiastic, happy, optimistic and passionate participants were willing to pay significantly more for a bottle. Additionally, the absence of negative emotions, even if typically evoked to a very weak extent, is a requirement for an increased willingness to pay. This study indicates it is worthwhile to consider context and emotions in wine testing and marketing.

“I like the sound of that!” Wine descriptions influence consumers' expectations, liking, emotions and willingness to pay for Australian white wines

This study investigated how information, typically presented on wine back-labels or wine company websites, influences consumers expected liking, informed liking, wine-evoked emotions and willingness to pay for Australian white wines. Regular white wine consumers (n=126) evaluated the same set of three commercially available white wines (mono-varietal Chardonnay, Riesling, Sauvignon Blanc) under three information levels. Session 1, blind tasting (no information provided) and Session 2, informed tasting (held at least 1week later) with both basic (sensory description of the wines) and elaborate (sensory plus high wine quality and favourable winery information) descriptions followed by liking, wine-evoked emotions (measured with the Australian Wine Evoked Emotions Lexicon (AWEEL)) and willingness to pay evaluations. Before tasting the wine in session 2, consumers also rated expected liking. Results showed that information level had a significant effect on all investigated variables. The elaborate information level evoked higher expectations before tasting the wines, plus resulted in higher liking ratings, elicitation of more intense positive (e.g. contented, happy and warm-hearted) and less intense negative emotions (e.g. embarrassed and unfulfilled), and a substantial increase in willingness to pay after tasting the wines compared to the blind condition, with the basic condition ranging in-between. These results were consistent across the three wine samples. Furthermore, if the liking rating after tasting the wines matched the expected liking or exceeded the expectations by 1 point on a 9-point hedonic scale, participants felt the most intense positive emotions and the least intense negative emotions. Whereas, if the expectations were not met or the actual liking exceeded the expectations by >2 points, participants felt less intense positive and more intense negative emotions. This highlights not only the importance of well written and accurate wine descriptions, but also that information can influence consumers wine drinking experience and behaviour.