Pierluigi Caddeo

The role of ethnic identity and perceived ethnic norms in the purchase of ethnical food products.

The role of group and individual variables in the purchasing of ethnical food products was tested through an extended theory of planned behavior (TPB) model. A total of 100 Indian female immigrants, living in Rome, Italy, were administered a self-reported questionnaire measuring the classical TPB variables (attitudes, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, behavioral intentions and self-reported behaviors) plus 3 additional variables: identification with the Indian ethnic group, perceived norms of the Indian ethnic group, and past behavior. Results confirmed that the new variables introduced are distinct from the original TPB components. As expected, variables at both the individual and group level play a role in predicting purchasing of ethnical foods products. Hierarchical multiple regressions showed that past behavior, ethnical identification, and perceived group norms explain an additional proportion of variance in intentions and self-reported behaviors, independently of attitudes, subjective norms and perceived control. A significant 2-way interaction between ethnical identification and perceived group norms was also detected: as predicted, the highest levels of ethnical food purchasing behavior were reported by high ethnical identifiers with stronger ethnical group norms, while the lowest levels were reported by low ethnical identifiers with weaker ethnical group norms. Theoretical and practical implications of results are discussed.

The Role of Ethnicity in Shaping Dietary Patterns: A Review on the Social and Psychological Correlates of Food Consumption

Ethnicity and identification with the ethnic group is a cultural mediating and orienting framework relevant for understanding individual food consumption behavior. Empirical evidence, within social and behavioral sciences, confirmed the relationship between ethnicity, food choices, and dietary practices. There are important health implications of ethnicity and ethnic identification, in relation to food consumption patterns. Ethnic identity might play a crucial role in shaping (un)healthy behaviors across the lifespan, and particularly among younger generations. Different models for the explanation of individual food choices have been proposed in the field of cognitive and social psychology. Recent empirical studies have highlighted the role of identification with the ethnic group and social norms (e.g., perceived norms of the ethnic group) in predicting ethnic food choices.

Willingness to pay for preserving local beaches: the role of framing, attitudes and local identification / Voluntad de pagar para preservar las playas locales: el papel del encuadre, la actitud y la identificación local

Abstract This research concerns the impact of cognitive (i.e., framing issues) and psychosocial (i.e., environmental attitudes and place identity) dimensions on people’s Willingness To Pay (WTP) for preservation and improvement of a ‘local’ environmental public good, i.e., local beaches. After a pilot study, a field experiment (N = 102) was carried out in order to verify the effects on WTP of: (1) the reminder about the involvement of other people for preserving ‘local’ beaches; (2) attitudes towards the environmental good; and (3) local identity. Results confirmed the reminder effect, so that individuals reminded of other contributors are willing to pay less than individuals who were not reminded. Positive attitudes towards local beaches are associated to higher WTP for preserving them, but this emerged only in those residents showing a higher local identification.

Cognitive mapping analysis and regional identity

The internal representation of the spatial models of the environment is usually defined through the term ‘‘cognitive map’’ (Tolman 1948; Lynch 1960). Cognitive mapping process is an internal representation of the spatial information, consisting in the acquisition, memorisation, recovering and decoding of environmental information (Downs and Stea 1977). It can be defined as a mental construction useful to understand the environment through remembering and processing the spatial information (Kitchin and Freundschuh 2000). A cognitive map can be then considered as an internal model of the world that helps people to cope successfully with the demands coming from the surrounding environment. This internal model has been generally considered as an useful source of information for spatial behaviours (Golledge and Stimpson 1997; Golledge 1987). People use different sources to develop their own image of the spatial environment with which they are interacting. Wide spaces, in particular, may include a lot of different places, as whole regions and states, requiring for several sources to be conceived and represented. Geographic regions, in turn, are defined as ‘‘spatial extended pieces of (near) earth surface that share some aspect of similarity across their extents’’ (Montello 2008, p. 305). These kinds of spaces are usually elaborated through a multiplicity of modalities, e.g. navigation, maps and descriptions (Tversky 2003). The scientific literature on cognitive maps has provided an useful instrument, i.e. the sketch map, for analysing the internalised cognitive map of the individuals. Sketch by means of map is an easy-to-use tool which is based on a graphical representation of the space. In fact, it relies on people’s common ability to make spatial inferences and on shared spatial schemes, insofar it can be considered a reliable method of data collection (Blades 1990). Usually, sketch maps are characterised by a series of biases due to perceptual cognitive factors that affects memory, so that people seem to reorganise completely the spatial information by semantic categories (McNamara et al. 1992). Nevertheless, primary aspects are not the only factors involved in the cognitive mapping process, especially in the case of regional maps. In fact, the bigger is the area represented in the map, the bigger is the role of symbolic aspects of the environment (Pinheiro 1998). In this sense, the study of mental representations of geographic regions and wide areas can provide information about the way in which people organise their world in a recognisable and manageable way (Ittelson et al. 1974). Following this conceptual line, the method of the sketch maps has met the interest of the Environmental Psychology domain, with particular reference to the depiction of broad levels of territorial scale (such as regions and nations, e.g. see Pinheiro 1998). In fact, this method is often used, in literature, to detect those psychosocial dimensions (such as social and place identity) that express the transactional pattern between people and their social–physical environment. One of the psychological patterns that can influence people–environment transaction and, in particular, the organisation of spatial information is place identity that R. Troffa (&) M. Mura P. Caddeo Department of Economic and Social Research, University of Cagliari, DRES, Cagliari, Italy e-mail: renato.troffa@uniroma1.it