“Unattractive = natural”: How explicit and implicit beliefs jointly affect consumer purchase of unattractive produce

Abstract

To reduce the waste of aesthetically unappealing yet safe produce, marketers and policymakers have attempted to associate such produce with the concept of “naturalness” (i.e., establishing the “unattractive = natural” belief), thereby increasing its appeal to consumers. However, research findings conflict regarding the effectiveness of this approach. To reconcile these inconsistencies, the present research suggests that two types of “unattractive = natural” beliefs—explicit and implicit—collectively influence consumer purchase of unattractive produce. Through one field and two lab experiments using two methods to measure implicit beliefs (i.e., the Implicit Association Test and word-embedding method) and consumer purchases (i.e., actual product choices and a Likert scale), we found that consumers with a high level of incongruence between explicit and implicit “unattractive = natural” beliefs exhibit a greater preference for unattractive produce than those with a low level of such incongruence. This occurs because the incongruence between implicit and explicit beliefs prompts elaborative thinking about the naturalness of unattractive produce, thus alleviating consumer avoidance. Our undertaking contributes to the existing literature on consumer purchase of unattractive produce by examining explicit and implicit beliefs. It also offers valuable insights into leveraging implicit measurement techniques to mitigate food waste.