School of Business, Renmin University of China, Beijing 100089, China.
College of Management and Economics, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou 350002, China.
Nutrients. 2021 Mar 26;13(4):1088. doi: 10.3390/nu13041088.
(1) Background: Labeling is one of the significant strategies to guide sustainable consumption behaviors. Nowadays, multi labels being displayed on the front-of-pack of food products is a common phenomenon. However, labels seldom operate solo, and competition or complement effects may be exerted on different labels. Therefore, the research objective is to explore the interaction effect when nutrition and low-carbon labels appear simultaneously; (2) Methods: Across four scenario-based experiments, including ice cream, yogurt, steak, and toast, this study manipulated the separate and joint occurrences of low-carbon and nutrition labels, the interaction effect of joint labels was tested, and the serial mediation model, which includes resource allocation and anticipated enjoyment of food consumption, was verified; (3) Results: Results show that people have a positive preference for the nutrition label and the carbon label, respectively, while these two labels working simultaneously attenuate the positive effect of the single label. When facing nutrition and carbon labels simultaneously, people would infer partial resources are allocated to healthy and environmental aspects so they have a lower anticipated enjoyment from food consumption. Thus, these two labels working simultaneously attenuate the positive effect of the single label, and consumers have a lower evaluation of food products. In addition, the joint backfire on the effect is only exerted on people with a higher level of zero-sum bias and only when joint labels have a high consistency of labels; (4) Conclusions: This study solved the contradictory problem of the joint effect of positive labels. The findings in this research contribute to promote sustainable food consumption. We suggest that similar labels should be avoided in the same front-of-pack of food, and manufacturers need to use ads to bring down consumers' zero-sum bias.
(1) 背景：标签是引导可持续消费行为的重要策略之一。如今，食品产品的外包装上通常会贴有多个标签。然而，标签很少单独起作用，不同标签之间可能存在竞争或互补效应。因此，本研究旨在探讨营养标签和低碳标签同时出现时的交互作用；(2) 方法：本研究通过四个基于情景的实验，包括冰淇淋、酸奶、牛排和烤面包，分别操纵低碳标签和营养标签的单独和共同出现，检验联合标签的交互作用，并验证包含资源分配和对食物消费预期享受的序列中介模型；(3) 结果：结果表明，人们对营养标签和碳标签分别有积极的偏好，而这两个标签同时出现会减弱单一标签的积极作用。当人们同时面对营养标签和碳标签时，他们会推断出部分资源被分配到健康和环境方面，因此对食物消费的预期享受会降低。因此，这两个标签同时出现会减弱单一标签的积极作用，消费者对食品的评价也会降低。此外，联合标签的负面反作用仅在具有较高零和偏见水平的消费者中发挥作用，并且只有当联合标签具有高度一致性时才会发挥作用；(4) 结论：本研究解决了正标签联合效应的矛盾问题。本研究的发现有助于促进可持续的食品消费。我们建议在食品的同一外包装上避免使用类似的标签，制造商需要使用广告来降低消费者的零和偏见。
