Hovard, Peter and Yeomans, Martin R (2015) Assimilation of healthy and indulgent impressions from labelling influences fullness but not intake or sensory experience. Flavour, 4 (28). ISSN 2044-7248

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Abstract

Background: Recent evidence suggests that products believed to be healthy may be over-consumed relative to believed indulgent or highly caloric products. The extent to which these effects relate to expectations from labelling, oral experience or assimilation of expectations is unclear. Over two experiments, we tested the hypotheses that healthy and indulgent information could be assimilated by oral experience of beverages and influence sensory evaluation, expected satiety, satiation and subsequent appetite. Additionally, we explored how expectation-experience congruency influenced these factors.
Results: Results supported some assimilation of healthiness and indulgent ratings—study 1 showed that indulgent ratings enhanced by the indulgent label persisted post-tasting, and this resulted in increased fullness ratings.
In study 2, congruency of healthy labels and oral experience promoted enhanced healthiness ratings. These healthiness and indulgent beliefs did not influence sensory analysis or intake—these were dictated by the products themselves. Healthy labels, but not experience, were associated with decreased expected satiety.
Conclusions: Overall labels generated expectations, and some assimilation where there were congruencies between expectation and experience, but oral experience tended to override initial expectations to determine ultimate sensory evaluations and intake. Familiarity with the sensory properties of the test beverages may have resulted in the use of prior knowledge, rather than the label information, to guide evaluations and behaviour.

Item Type:	Article
Keywords:	Satiation, Labelling, Expected satiety, Sensory properties, Health halos
Schools and Departments:	School of Psychology > Psychology
Subjects:	B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology > BF0180 Experimental psychology Q Science > QZ Psychology T Technology > TX Home economics > TX0341 Nutrition. Foods and food supply
Depositing User:	Martin Yeomans
Date Deposited:	07 Jan 2016 11:08
Last Modified:	06 Mar 2017 14:52
URI:	http://srodev.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/59002

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