Food neophobia: Higher responsiveness to sensory properties but low engagement with foods generally

Abstract

Food neophobia (FN), typically defined in terms of rejection of unfamiliar foods but also associated with higher negative arousal in relation to food, has been established as an important personality variable in explaining food preferences and choices. Past research has examined responses to foods as a function of FN but not considered if there are specific sensory qualities of foods that are more important in food rejections. We propose that the concept of sensory sensitivity may help explain the origin of increased arousal in high FN adults, and conducted an online survey in Singapore with 1896 participants as a first step towards investigating this hypothesis. FN was measured using the FN scale (Pliner & Hobden, 1992), and additionally participants: (a) rated their agreement with a series of statements that reflected their attitudes towards food sensory qualities, and (b) completed The Foodie Index (Pickering & Pickering, 2022) to obtain measures of food involvement and enjoyment. The results reinforced earlier findings that FN is related to an overall lower level of enjoyment of foods, and further revealed that: (a) evaluation of food sensory qualities prior to, or during, eating or sensory reasons for rejecting a food were positively related to FN, and (b) increasing disengagement with foods in terms of knowledge, interest, time and money spent on food as FN increases. Collectively, the results underscore the centrality of FN in understanding consumers' food-related experiences and behaviors by showing that FN is related to both sensitivity about specific sensory properties and low engagement with foods generally. Practical Applications: Food and sensory profiling by consumers has been increasing in recent years. The present data will assist in interpretation of consumer studies in which FN and/or food interest/engagement has been measured, since both are found to be a strong source of variation in consumer data. In particular, both product engagement and level of FN have been shown elsewhere to impact how consumers allocate their attention to sensory tasks. This suggests that sources of variation in consumer responses, whether due to general or sensory-specific responses to foods, are crucial in interpreting sensory profiling or preference data.