First steps in the development of a psychological test on the effects of food on mental well-being

The Potential Influence of Organic Food Consumption and Intention-Behavior Gap on Consumers' Subjective Wellbeing

This paper applied a self-administered survey to investigate the impact of organic food behavior and the intention-behavior gap in organic food consumption (OIBG) on consumers’ subjective wellbeing including physical, emotional, social and intellectual dimensions. The survey was carried out with 385 consumers. Furthermore, the study conducted a food test to explore the different impacts of organic and conventional food samples on the mental and physical conditions of consumers’ wellbeing applying a psychological questionnaire. The food test took place in a sensory lab with a panel of 63 untrained German consumers. The research findings demonstrated a positive impact of the organic food consumption on consumers’ subjective wellbeing, while no negative impact of OIBG has been perceived. Moreover, during the food test, consumers distinguished no differences between the impact of organic and conventional stimuli on their mental and physical status. Understanding how consumers perceive the impact of organic food consumption on their wellbeing is one important aspect. However, in the interest of narrowing the OIBG, it is more important to understand how consumers perceive the impact of this gap on their daily-life wellbeing.

Consumers' Emotion Attitudes towards Organic and Conventional Food: A Comparison Study of Emotional Profiling and Self-Reported Method

Emotions represent a major driver behind a consumption behavior. It may provide more important information beyond consumers’ preferences. This study contributes to a better understanding of the discrepancy in emotion attitudes towards organic versus conventional food using a cognitive survey and real food consumption experience. An emotional profiling under informed and uninformed condition, a cognitive survey, and a rapid forced-choice test were carried out with 46 consumers. Our work detected a yawning gap in consumers’ declared emotion attitudes in the cognitive survey and elicited emotion attitudes in the food consumption experience. Results showed that consumers exaggerate their positive emotion attitudes towards organic over conventional and their negative emotion attitudes towards conventional over organic. Even though consumers expressed higher negative emotion attitudes towards conventional food than organic in a cognitive survey, during the emotional profiling they had nearly equal emotion attitudes towards both conventional and organic samples. Moreover, positive declared emotions in a cognitive survey formed a good predictor of the final choice of conventional products over organic under time pressure. However, preferences, declared emotion, as well as elicited emotion attitudes were less useful as predictors of organic choice under time pressure. These results show the importance of taking into consideration the type of applied method when investigating consumers’ emotion attitudes towards organic and conventional products.

Evaluation of a novel approach to preventing railway suicides: the community stations project

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to describe an evaluation of the Community Stations Project. The Community Stations Project was designed to address railway suicides in two ways: by improving the station environment in a manner that might improve community members’ feelings of wellbeing; and raising community members’ awareness of poor mental health and likelihood of reaching out to at-risk individuals. It involved four types of interventions (arts and culture, music, food and coffee, and “special events”) delivered at four stations in Victoria.

Design/methodology/approach

A short anonymous survey was administered to community members on iPads at the four participating railway stations during the implementation of the interventions (between October and December 2016). The survey included questions about respondents’ demographics, their awareness of the intervention(s), their views of the station, their attitudes towards people with poor mental health and their emotional wellbeing.

Findings

A total of 1,309 people took part in the survey. Of these, 48 per cent of community members surveyed reporting noticing an intervention at their station. Noticing the events was associated with positive views of the station, improved understanding of poor mental health, and a greater likelihood of reaching out to someone who might be at risk of poor mental health. Awareness of intervention events was not associated with respondents’ own emotional wellbeing.

Practical implications

Continuing to focus efforts on mental health awareness activities may further strengthen the impact of the Community Stations Project interventions and ultimately prevent suicides at railway stations.

Originality/value

This paper evaluates a novel approach to improving wellbeing and understanding of poor mental health in the train station environment.

Development and Application of a Test for Food-Induced Emotions

This study aimed to develop a test to measure food-induced emotions suitable for stable food and beverages. All of the experiments were conducted under the conditions of a consumer sensory evaluation according to German standard DIN 10974. Test development included descriptors’ derivation and factor analysis as well as a comparison between the new test (empathic food test, EFT) and a hedonic sensory test and an unspecific psychological test, known as a multidimensional mood questionnaire (MDMQ). Nineteen sensory experts derived twelve items using free-choice profiling. After an exploratory factor analyses, ten of the intended twelve items were integrated into two scales. To compare the new questionnaire (EFT) to the MDMQ and a hedonic test, panels of 59 (EFT), 64 (MDMQ) and 63 (hedonic sensory test) untrained individuals described their perceptions after consuming sensorially similar pairs of milk, water, bread and sugar. The benchmark of comparison was the power to discriminate between the food pairs. Test-retest replicability was demonstrated. All three tests presented slight differences in sample preference and effect size depending on the offered products. These findings underscore the need to test new methods with a wide range of products. Further research is needed to investigate the relationship between sensorial perception and emotional response.