Justina Gineikiene

Our Apples Are Healthier Than Your Apples: Deciphering the Healthiness Bias for Domestic and Foreign Products

This study extends previous research by exploring perceptions of healthiness in the international food marketplace. To this end, it aims to fill an important gap by shedding light on the role of country of origin in shaping perceptions of healthiness. The authors provide evidence that domestic and foreign food products elicit different perceptions of healthiness. Consumers choose domestic products because they perceive them as healthier and more natural. The effect holds across different samples and product categories (apples, tomatoes, bread, and yogurt). However, this healthiness bias vanishes when products are presented as posing health risks and when products are introduced with a dual identity (i.e., both foreign and domestic). Researching these health-related effects helps provide a better understanding of consumer attitudes toward domestic- versus foreign-made food products.

Functional, organic or conventional? Food choices of health conscious and skeptical consumers

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore how health consciousness and skepticism toward health claims are related to perceived healthiness and willingness to buy functional food (i.e. functional yogurt) compared to conventional and organic (bio) food. Design/methodology/approach A survey of 295 consumers was conducted in Lithuania. Data were analyzed using structural equation modeling. Findings Research findings indicate that health conscious consumers tend to discount messages about the health value of functional food and show preferences for organic food. In contrast, skepticism toward health claims has a higher negative homogenous impact on the perceived healthiness of functional, organic and conventional products compared to health consciousness. On the other hand, skepticism toward health claims does not directly reduce consumers’ willingness to buy functional, organic and conventional products. Research limitations/implications Testing other settings, product categories, additional constructs and understanding underlying processes using an experimental design may help to gain more insights into how health conscious and skeptical consumers make food choices. Practical implications An examination of health consciousness and skepticism toward health claims can provide at least a partial explanation as to why many functional food products fail to gain consumer confidence. Originality/value Based on the reactance theory, the study sheds some light on the understanding of how different psychosocial factors are related to consumer attitudes toward functional, organic and conventional food.

Do you feel younger enough to choose nostalgic products? Exploring the role of age identity in nostalgic purchasing behavior

The purpose of this paper is to empirically examine the links between consumer age identity, nostalgia and preferences for nostalgic products.,A theoretical framework is proposed based on integrating nostalgia and age identity as parts of an individual’s self-concept. Research results are obtained from the empirical study of a sample of 313 consumers in Lithuania and five interviews with experts in marketing industry.,Employing structural equation modeling analysis, the current study provides initial evidence that the bigger the discrepancy between one’s chronological and cognitive age, the more nostalgic products one buys. Furthermore, age identity acts as a better predictor for purchasing nostalgic products than nostalgia.,The current paper explores the impact of nostalgia and age identity on consumer purchasing behavior which is not addressed in literature before. By evaluating the role of nostalgia and age identity, the study offers a deeper understanding of consumer behavior in nostalgia contexts. Moreover, unlike in most previous studies on nostalgia and age identity, it is focused on actual rather than intended behavior. The present study is also relevant for current marketers as the findings provide additional information and recommendations for choosing appropriate marketing and communication strategies.

Don’t Dare to Blur Our Boundaries: Balancing Between Current and Past Identities

The study offers evidence that in historically connected markets (HCMs), consumers might harbor disidentification toward the consumption patterns of foreign countries’ consumers. Findings indicate that disidentification acts as a strong predictor of consumer behavior and outweighs ethnocentric tendencies in affecting product judgment and willingness to buy foreign products from HCMs.