Eating dogfood: Examining the relative roles of reason and emotion

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization
Volume 92, August 2013, Pages 202–213
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2013.06.004

William Schulze [a], Annemie Maertens [b], Brian Wansink [c]

[a] Kenneth L. Robinson Professor of Agricultural Economics at Cornell University, United States
[b] Posvar Hall 3204, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15260, United States
[c] John Dyson Professor of Consumer Behavior at Cornell University, United States

Highlights

• We study stigma in a laboratory setting by eliciting willingness-to-pay from participants for a chicken sandwich and ice cream.
• We provide information about the sandwich (healthy ingredients, but made for dogs) and ice cream (artificial ingredients, but fat free).
• We put a subset of the participants under cognitive load.
• The order in which the information is provided matters and participants who are not under cognitive load deliberate the health benefits.
• These results point to an underlying dual process model.

Abstract

Psychologists have described the working of the human brain as a combination of two systems – a dual process model. One system is intuitive and automatic (System 1) and the other is reflective and rational (System 2). To determine what insights this model has for stigma – such as fears of food contamination – we elicited the willingness-to-pay for two foods: a sandwich made of dog food and fat-free ice cream. We find critical evidence of a dual process decision making process in which the absence of cognitive load allows the participants to deliberate over the health benefits of either food. In addition, in the case of the sandwich, there is an emotional component in which the positive emotion of surprise can partially offset the negative emotion of disgust. This has notable implications for addressing food safety fears related to contamination as well as the food neophobia related to unfamiliar foods, processing, or preparation.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016726811300156X