The "cuteness = sweetness" intuition : the priming effects of cuteness on food perception and purchase intention

Author:: Xue, Xunyue
Published:: [University Park, Pennsylvania] : Pennsylvania State University, 2020.
Physical Description:: 1 electronic document
Additional Creators:: Mattila, Anna S.

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Summary:

All humans crave for sweet foods despite their age, race, and cultural background (Drewnowski et al., 2012), and they are conditioned to expect sugary foods at a high sweet level (De la Pea, 2010; Laudan, 2016; Woloson, 2002). Therefore, lots of food marketers intuitively use cute elements to position their products as sweeter. Yet, research on the cuteness = sweetness link in the marketing domain is scant. This research examines how priming cuteness influences consumers food perceptions (i.e., perceived sweetness, tastiness, and healthiness) and purchase intention. An online and a lab experiment were employed to test the proposed hypotheses. The major findings indicate that priming cuteness increases purchase intention, which is sequentially mediated by perceived sweetness and tastiness. Cute elements increase perceived sweetness and the positive priming effect of cuteness on perceived tastiness is mediated by perceived sweetness, whereas cute stimuli have no impact on healthiness perception. I present the theoretical contribution and practical implications of the studys findings and propose directions for future research.

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Dissertation Note:

M.S. Pennsylvania State University 2020.

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The full text of the dissertation is available as an Adobe Acrobat .pdf file ; Adobe Acrobat Reader required to view the file.

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