University of Bath, UK.
University of Bath, UK.
Appetite. 2019 Jun 1;137:104-113. doi: 10.1016/j.appet.2019.02.021. Epub 2019 Mar 3.
In vitro meat (IVM) grown from animal cells is approaching commercial viability. This technology could enable consumers to circumvent the ethical and environmental issues associated with meat-eating. However, consumer acceptance of IVM is uncertain, and is partly dependent on how the product is framed. This study investigated the effect of different names for IVM on measures of consumer acceptance. Participants (N = 185) were allocated to one of four conditions in an experimental design in which the product name was manipulated to be 'clean meat', 'cultured meat', 'animal free meat', or 'lab grown meat'. Participants gave word associations and measures of their attitudes and behavioural intentions towards the product. The results indicated that those in the 'clean meat' and 'animal free meat' conditions had significantly more positive attitudes towards IVM than those in the 'lab grown meat' condition, and those in the 'clean meat' condition had significantly more positive behavioural intentions towards IVM compared to those in the 'lab grown meat' condition. Mediation analyses indicated that the valence of associations accounted for a significant amount of the observed differences, suggesting that anchoring can explain these differences. We discuss these results in the context of social representations theory and give recommendations for future research.
体外培育肉（IVM）由动物细胞培育而成，即将实现商业可行性。这项技术可以使消费者避免食用肉类带来的伦理和环境问题。然而，消费者对 IVM 的接受程度尚不确定，这在一定程度上取决于产品的呈现方式。本研究调查了 IVM 不同名称对消费者接受程度的影响。在一项实验设计中，参与者（N=185）被分配到四个条件之一，产品名称分别为“清洁肉”、“培育肉”、“无动物肉”或“实验室培育肉”。参与者对产品进行了词汇联想，并对其态度和行为意向进行了测量。结果表明，“清洁肉”和“无动物肉”条件下的参与者对 IVM 的态度明显比“实验室培育肉”条件下的参与者更为积极，而“清洁肉”条件下的参与者对 IVM 的行为意向明显比“实验室培育肉”条件下的参与者更为积极。中介分析表明，联想的效价解释了观察到的差异，这表明锚定可以解释这些差异。我们在社会表征理论的背景下讨论了这些结果，并为未来的研究提出了建议。
