Mawad Franco, Trías Marcela, Giménez Ana, Maiche Alejandro, Ares Gastón
Centro de Investigación Básica en Psicología (CIBPsi), Facultad de Psicología, Universidad de la República (UdelaR), Tristán Narvaja 1674, Montevideo, Uruguay.
Centro de Investigación Básica en Psicología (CIBPsi), Facultad de Psicología, Universidad de la República (UdelaR), Tristán Narvaja 1674, Montevideo, Uruguay; Departamento de Ciencia y Tecnología de Alimentos, Facultad de Química, Universidad de la República (UdelaR), General Flores 2124, CP 11800 Montevideo, Uruguay.
Food Res Int. 2015 Aug;74:1-9. doi: 10.1016/j.foodres.2015.04.023. Epub 2015 Apr 20.
Cognitive styles are characteristic and stable ways in which people acquire, organize and use information for solving problems and making decisions. Field dependence/independence is one of the most studied cognitive styles. Field independent subjects are characterized by having less difficulty in separating information from its contextual surroundings and being less likely to be influenced by external cues than field dependent individuals. The present work aimed at studying the influence of field dependence/independence cognitive style on consumers' visual processing and choice of yogurt labels. One hundred and thirty three consumers completed a choice conjoint task. They were asked to select their preferred yogurt label from each of 16 pairs of labels. While they completed the task their eye movements were recorded using an eye-tracker. Then, consumers were asked to complete the Group Embedded Figure Test to determine their cognitive style. Consumers were divided into two groups with different cognitive styles: 58% of the sample was characterized as field dependent and 42% as field independent. When making their choices, field dependent consumers tended to engage in less thoughtful information processing than field independent consumers and they made fewer fixations on traditional nutritional information. Besides, cognitive style significantly affected the relative importance of fat and sugar content on consumer choices and modulated the influence of the traffic light system. Field dependent consumers gave less importance to the nutritional composition of the yogurts than field independent consumers for selecting their preferred label. Results from this work suggest that studying the psychological underpinnings of consumers' decision making process when selecting food products has a great potential to contribute to a better understanding of how eating patterns and consumer preferences are shaped.
认知风格是人们获取、组织和运用信息以解决问题和做出决策的典型且稳定的方式。场依存/场独立是研究最多的认知风格之一。场独立型个体的特点是，与场依存型个体相比，他们在将信息与其背景环境分离时困难较小，且受外部线索影响的可能性较小。本研究旨在探讨场依存/场独立认知风格对消费者视觉加工及酸奶标签选择的影响。133名消费者完成了一项选择联合任务。要求他们从16对标签中分别选出自己喜欢的酸奶标签。在他们完成任务时，使用眼动仪记录其眼动情况。然后，要求消费者完成团体镶嵌图形测验以确定其认知风格。消费者被分为具有不同认知风格的两组：样本中58%为场依存型，42%为场独立型。在做出选择时，场依存型消费者比场独立型消费者进行的深思熟虑的信息处理更少，他们对传统营养信息的注视次数也更少。此外，认知风格显著影响脂肪和糖分含量对消费者选择的相对重要性，并调节了交通灯系统的影响。在选择喜欢的标签时，场依存型消费者比场独立型消费者对酸奶的营养成分重视程度更低。这项研究的结果表明，研究消费者在选择食品时决策过程的心理基础，对于更好地理解饮食模式和消费者偏好的形成具有很大的潜力。
