1,720,960 research outputs found
Emotional profiling for segmenting consumers: The case of household food waste
Full text linkFollowing previous studies which show that emotions are a powerful predictor of behaviour, in the current work we explored the potential predictive role of emotions in the case of household food waste. Based on a sample of 183 Italian subjects, we analysed the relationship between a set of emotions towards food waste and the intention to waste. The analysis was carried out in three steps. First, a Principal Component Analysis was performed on emotions in order to synthesise few complex indicators of the way people feel when thinking to food waste. In a second step, a cluster analysis was carried out, based on the PCA components scores, to derive different profiles of individuals as far as their emotions towards food waste are concerned. Third, by means of ANOVA and post-hoc tests differences across groups have been tested with respect to socio-demographic variables and the intention to reduce food waste. Results confirm the link between emotions and intention against food waste and highlight that socio-demographic characteristics are not relevant to affect the emotions’ profile. Emotions allow a meaningful segmentation of consumers, which is not possible to draw using sociodemographic characteristics
Consumers’ attitude towards palm oil consumption: The key role of health concern.
No full textPalm oil is a versatile ingredient of many food and non-food products. Yet, over the last year it has rapidly become a controversial product due to its alleged harmful health, social and environmental effects. Many food companies have introduced alternative fat sources into their products, in order to meet consumers’ concerns.
Despite a growing literature exists on palm oil sustainability, consumers’ attitudes towards palm oil consumption have not been deeply investigated yet. There are few available studies, mainly focused on consumers’ willingness to pay for palm oil free products and consumers’ awareness of the problem.
The aim of the present study is to gain a better understanding of consumers’ attitudes towards palm oil consumption, by taking into account three dimensions of sustainable consumption—environment, social issues, and health—and assessing their relations with intention to avoid palm oil and individual’s engagement in information seeking about palm oil.
A survey of 608 respondents was performed. Data were analysed by structural equation modelling (SEM). Noticeably, this is the first study to address the issue of comparison between different drivers of sustainable consumer intentions using a formal test by SEM.
Results show that: a) health concern is the main driver of participants’ intention to reduce palm oil consumption; b) consumers’ attitudes towards environment and social fairness exert significant direct effects on intention; c) information seeking exerts a direct effect on intention; also, it partially mediates the effects of environmental and social concerns, whereas it totally mediates the health concern effect.
Keywords: Palm oil, health concern, food consumption sustainability, structural equation modelling
Compliance with rules and future uncertainty related to the COVID-19 pandemic: trust in government, trust in science, and perceived threat
No full textDuring a pandemic, a high level of compliance by citizens with prevention guidelines provided by the Government and scientists is important in order to slow the spread of the virus; nevertheless, there is evidence of people ignoring government and scientists' recommendation all over the world. In addition, the COVID-19 outbreak, and the mitigating measures as well, have had huge negative effects on citizens' everyday life, including confinement, separation of families and friends, restriction of movement and personal freedom. These factors, together with the unpredictable duration and likelihood of resurgence of the pandemic, contribute to future uncertainty. The aim of current research is to contribute to the understanding of citizens' compliance with rules and future uncertainty related to the COVID-19 pandemic. We explored the relations-scarcely investigated so far-of compliance with rules and future uncertainty with three possible antecedents: trust in government, trust in scientists, and perceived threat. In addition, regarding the last factor, two dimensions have been distinguished, namely perceived seriousness and perceived probability of the threat. Results suggest that compliance is positively associated with trust in government, whereas future uncertainty is negatively correlated with trust in scientists. Perceived threat correlates with both compliance and uncertainty, and the association with perceived seriousness is larger than with perceived probability
Social Emotions and Good Provider Norms in Tackling Household Food Waste: An Extension of the Theory of Planned Behavior
Full text linkMany studies have explored the antecedents of food waste in the framework of the theory of planned behavior (TPB). Scholars have also made efforts to add explaining variables to the original TPB, with mixed results; they often fail to demonstrate the incremental validity of the extended models. In the current study, we sought to assess whether an extended TPB model including social emotions and Good Provider norms could predict intention to reduce food waste. We also measured two behaviors which may be predicted by intentions to reduce food waste: (1) reducing servings and (2) using leftovers. The results show that social emotions help explain leftovers utilization, whereas the Good Provider norms are inversely correlated to the reduction of servings. Compared to the traditional TPB model, the extended version has more predictive power, especially as regards reducing servings
Feeling Threatened by the War in Ukraine: A Study in Italy on Identification, Entitativity and Attitudes Toward the EU
Full text linkRussia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 posed a practical and symbolic threat to EU citizens. Did this threat affect citizens’ identification with the EU? This was the main research question addressed in the current paper. In addition, we sought to evaluate whether the influence of perceived threat on the identification with the EU was mediated by perceived entitativity of the EU. Finally, we expected perceived threat to improve participants’ attitudes towards EU integration and enlargement, through the mediation of entitativity (Mediator 1) and identification with the EU (Mediator 2). We conducted a survey (N = 349, 186 females; Mage = 34.52) to assess this pattern of relations through structural equation models. Results show that perceived threat affects identification with the EU only indirectly, through the mediation of entitativity. In addition, perceived threat and entitativity have a significant indirect effect on attitude toward EU integration and attitude toward EU enlargement, yet they are directly associated only to the former. From a theoretical perspective, results are discussed in relation to previous research that shows the effect of perceived threat on identification, failing to consider the mediating role of entitativity. From a practical point of view, results may provide new insights on communication commonly used to reinforce the ingroup identity—mainly by threat-based strategies—through a re-consideration of the critical role of entitativity
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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