Food values and personality traits in the United States and Norway
Aida Tabarroky Ardebili, Kyrre Rickertsen
Abstract
Values and personality affect food choices, and values are associated with personality. Food values are values that have been developed specifically within a food context. Our primary objective was to investigate the associations between these food values and the Big Five personality traits. An online survey with a choice experiment on food values and questions about socioeconomic characteristics and personality traits were conducted in Norway and the US. A latent class logit model was used to segment respondents based on the relative importance they assigned to the different food values. Personality traits and socioeconomic characteristics were used to determine the probability of membership in each segment. A health, an altruistic, a rational, and a hedonistic segment were identified in both countries. In addition, Norwegian natural and welfare segments and US safety and indeterminate segments were identified. Several personality traits and socioeconomic characteristics were significant in defining the segments, and these traits and characteristics can potentially be used for marketing purposes of foods with sustainability-related attributes. Marketing activities can be targeted at segments who emphasize sustainability-related aspects of food consumption such as environmental impact, fairness, and animal welfare.