Men and the Food Leftovers of Attractive Others: An Abstract

Abstract

In order to find ways to reduce wastage of food leftovers, it is necessary to understand the factors that influence such wastage. Using the extreme example of reusing food leftovers from unknown consumers, we consider the extent to which consumer contamination of food leftovers influences the probability of choosing these food leftovers, through the emotion disgust, taking into account the gender of the participant. Additionally, we investigate how the level of attractiveness of the consumer who left the food influences this relationship. Here, we assume a cross-gender effect for the attractiveness manipulation. These assumptions are in line with the recent literature that investigates consumer contamination in another context (Argo et al. 2006, 2008).

We tested our hypotheses with data from two online experiments that were based on a 2 (level of contamination: low vs. high) × 3 (level of attractiveness of the consumer who left the food: less attractive woman (man) vs. attractive woman (man) vs. no woman (man) visible) between-subjects design with a control group (female study: N = 248, 49.6% women, M_age = 23.3 years; male study: N = 311; 46.6% women, M_age = 22.4 years; both online studies were based on pure student samples). In all experimental conditions, participants were asked to imagine that there is a new offer in their university canteen aimed at reducing food waste. They can now choose returned leftovers, in addition to the fresh dishes. The level of contamination was manipulated by showing either a photo of leftovers rearranged on a new plate by a canteen employee in the low-contamination condition or a photo of leftovers just as they were returned by the consumer, who left the food, in the high-contamination condition. In the control group, a fresh dish was shown, and no consumer was mentioned.

We found that consumer contamination leads to disgust, which decreases the probability of choosing food leftovers. This mediation is gender independent. We found no significant effect for female participants regarding the effect of attractiveness in both studies. Nevertheless, we found a significant direct effect of the level of attractiveness on the probability of choosing food leftovers for male participants in the female study, and a significant first-stage moderated mediation for male participants in the male study. Further research, which should enhance our understanding of the gender effect and yield more insights into food leftovers itself, is underway.