School of Economics, Shenzhen Polytechnic, Shenzhen, China.
Business School, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China.
Front Public Health. 2023 Jan 11;10:1042535. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2022.1042535. eCollection 2022.
Whether health awareness is self-awareness or conformity awareness is a question worth discussing. Especially under the current trend of organic food consumption, whether it is driven by health consciousness or herd mentality is worth exploring. This is not only about the government's formulation of health policies for the industry (for example, paying more attention to health standards), but also about the sustainable development of organic food consumption (for example, suppliers highlighting their own health advantages). However, there is still little research in this area. Based on data from 1,658 respondents in four first-tier cities in China, this paper explores whether consumers are consuming organic food under health consciousness or herd mentality. This paper uses a logit model to explore the key causes of health consciousness or herd mentality, and uses a propensity score matching (PSM) method to measure the impact of health consciousness and herd mentality on organic food consumption, comparing the effects across age and education groups. The results show that: (1) Individual characteristics, family characteristics, health status, volition, social trust and market education significantly influenced consumers' health consciousness or herd mentality; (2) The main motivation for organic food consumption is health consciousness, but herd mentality plays a role of amplifying this effect.
健康意识是自我意识还是从众意识，这是一个值得探讨的问题。特别是在当前有机食品消费的趋势下，消费者购买有机食品是出于健康意识还是从众心理，这一点值得探究。这不仅关系到政府为该行业制定健康政策（例如，更加关注健康标准），还关系到有机食品消费的可持续发展（例如，供应商强调自己的健康优势）。然而，这方面的研究还很少。本文基于中国四个一线城市的 1658 名受访者的数据，探讨消费者购买有机食品是出于健康意识还是从众心理。本文使用逻辑回归模型探讨健康意识或从众心理的关键原因，并使用倾向得分匹配（PSM）方法衡量健康意识和从众心理对有机食品消费的影响，比较不同年龄和教育群体的影响。结果表明：（1）个体特征、家庭特征、健康状况、意志力、社会信任和市场教育显著影响消费者的健康意识或从众心理；（2）有机食品消费的主要动机是健康意识，但从众心理放大了这种影响。
