Consumers' motivation for eating free-range meat or less meat

The present paper analyzed the motivational orientations of consumers who choose to eat (1) small portions of meat or (2) ethically distinctive meat, such as free-range meat, in relation to the motivational orientations of their opposites. Going beyond the conventional approach to consumer behavior, our work builds on recent insights in motivational psychology about the ways in which people may approach matches or avoid mismatches to a desired end-state. This provides a scientific basis for the aim to foster more sustainable food consumption and production patterns. Our approach involves a systematic analysis of consumers' goal orientations regarding meat choices in terms of their concerns with obtaining positive outcomes (i.e. promotion focus on good nutrition) and avoiding negative outcomes (i.e. prevention focus on moral and health aspects of eating). We examined how a sample of Dutch consumers (n = 939) described their chronic goal orientations regarding food, their own meat choices and, about two weeks later, their promotionand prevention-oriented associations favoring either small portions of meat and free-range meat or their opposites. Largely in line with our hypotheses we found that the meat choices of consumers with a chronic prevention orientation were often motivated by rejecting unacceptable alternatives from their choice set. They saw "eating small portions of meat" as a match and avoided the mismatch of "large portions". Also, those of them who used to eat free-range meat considered this behavior a match and eating "meat produced by intensive farming" a mismatch. Conversely, the meat choices of consumers with a chronic promotion orientation were often motivated by choosing the best alternatives from their choice set. This was in particular relevant for their choice between "free-range meat" and "meat produced by intensive farming". Accordingly, choosing a small portion of meat was often approached with a prevention orientation and choosing free-range meat with either a prevention or a promotion orientation. These differences in motivational orientation underline that the pursuit of sustainability requires careful consideration of not just undesirable but also desirable end-states. IVM Working Paper: I. 07/02 Date: December 2007