IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/jconsa/v54y2020i4p1246-1269.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Is it godly to waste food? How understanding consumers' religion can help reduce consumer food waste

Author

Listed:
  • Elizabeth A. Minton
  • Kathryn A. Johnson
  • Maricarmen Vizcaino
  • Christopher Wharton

Abstract

Food waste is a problem worldwide, but solutions have yet to adequately incorporate consumers' core values—values which are often rooted in religion. Study 1 shows that restrictive religious norms (e.g., rules about food consumption, fasting) lead to greater food waste, whereas supportive religious norms (e.g., sharing food) lead to reduced food waste. Study 2 replicates prior findings and rules out competing explanations. Study 3 manipulates marketing messaging to show that consumers with higher (lower) levels of religiosity are more likely to reduce food waste with a prevention (promotion) framed message partnered with environmental reasoning or a promotion (prevention) framed message partnered with people‐based reasoning. Implications for marketers, consumer advocacy groups, and policy makers desiring to reduce food waste are provided.

Suggested Citation

  • Elizabeth A. Minton & Kathryn A. Johnson & Maricarmen Vizcaino & Christopher Wharton, 2020. "Is it godly to waste food? How understanding consumers' religion can help reduce consumer food waste," Journal of Consumer Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(4), pages 1246-1269, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:jconsa:v:54:y:2020:i:4:p:1246-1269
    DOI: 10.1111/joca.12328
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/joca.12328
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/joca.12328?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. H. E. Frech & Peter Zweifel, 2017. "Market Socialism and Community Rating in Health Insurance," Comparative Economic Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Association for Comparative Economic Studies, vol. 59(3), pages 405-427, September.
    2. Jessica Aschemann-Witzel & Ilona De Hooge & Pegah Amani & Tino Bech-Larsen & Marije Oostindjer, 2015. "Consumer-Related Food Waste: Causes and Potential for Action," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 7(6), pages 1-21, May.
    3. Paolacci, Gabriele & Chandler, Jesse & Ipeirotis, Panagiotis G., 2010. "Running experiments on Amazon Mechanical Turk," Judgment and Decision Making, Cambridge University Press, vol. 5(5), pages 411-419, August.
    4. Daniels, Peter L., 2010. "Climate change, economics and Buddhism -- Part 2: New views and practices for sustainable world economies," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(5), pages 962-972, March.
    5. UNICEF & World Bank, 2017. "Lesotho Public Health Sector Expenditure Review," World Bank Publications - Reports 29344, The World Bank Group.
    6. Nwankwo, Sonny & Hamelin, Nicolas & Khaled, Meryem, 2014. "Consumer values, motivation and purchase intention for luxury goods," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 21(5), pages 735-744.
    7. Birau, Mia M. & Faure, Corinne, 2018. "It is easy to do the right thing: Avoiding the backfiring effects of advertisements that blame consumers for waste," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 102-117.
    8. Peter Zweifel, 2017. "Competition in the healthcare sector: a missing dimension," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 18(2), pages 135-138, March.
    9. Jannette van Beek & Michel J.J. Handgraaf & Gerrit Antonides, 2017. "Time orientation effects on health behavior," Chapters, in: Morris Altman (ed.), Handbook of Behavioural Economics and Smart Decision-Making, chapter 23, pages 413-428, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    10. Graham-Rowe, Ella & Jessop, Donna C. & Sparks, Paul, 2014. "Identifying motivations and barriers to minimising household food waste," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 15-23.
    11. repec:idb:brikps:6883 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Jayson L. Lusk & Brenna Ellison, 2017. "A note on modelling household food waste behaviour," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(16), pages 1199-1202, September.
    13. Stergios Leventis & Emmanouil Dedoulis & Omneya Abdelsalam, 2018. "The Impact of Religiosity on Audit Pricing," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 148(1), pages 53-78, March.
    14. ., 2017. "Health care cost rapid assessment post check," Chapters, in: Living Wages Around the World, chapter 9, pages 206-213, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    15. Hanna E & Remuzat C & Auquier P & Claude Dussart & Toumi M, 2017. "Could Healthcoin Be A Revolution In Healthcare?," Post-Print hal-01722779, HAL.
    16. repec:cup:judgdm:v:5:y:2010:i:5:p:411-419 is not listed on IDEAS
    17. Purvi Shah & Adrienne Hall‐Phillips, 2018. "Antecedents and Implications of Expiration Date Search Effort," Journal of Consumer Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 52(2), pages 229-251, July.
    18. Minton, Elizabeth A. & Johnson, Kathryn A. & Liu, Richie L., 2019. "Religiosity and special food consumption: The explanatory effects of moral priorities," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 442-454.
    19. Danyi Qi & Brian E Roe, 2016. "Household Food Waste: Multivariate Regression and Principal Components Analyses of Awareness and Attitudes among U.S. Consumers," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(7), pages 1-19, July.
    20. Vicente Fretes Cibils & Teresa Ter-Minassian & J. Sebastián Scrofina & Federico Ortega & Germán Ríos & Alejandro Rasteletti & Arturo Ramírez Verdugo & Emilio Pineda & Jorge Martínez-Vázquez & Cristián, 2015. "Decentralizing Revenue in Latin America: Why and How," IDB Publications (Books), Inter-American Development Bank, number 88858 edited by Vicente Fretes Cibils & Teresa Ter-Minassian, February.
    21. Jackson, Dylan B. & Johnson, Kecia R. & Vaughn, Michael G. & Hinton, Marissa E., 2019. "The role of neighborhoods in household food insufficiency: Considering interactions between physical disorder, low social capital, violence, and perceptions of danger," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 221(C), pages 58-67.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Cătălina Chinie & Isabelle Biclesanu & Francesco Bellini, 2021. "The Impact of Awareness Campaigns on Combating the Food Wasting Behavior of Consumers," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(20), pages 1-17, October.
    2. Lingfei Wang & Yuqin Yang & Guoyan Wang, 2022. "The Clean Your Plate Campaign: Resisting Table Food Waste in an Unstable World," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(8), pages 1-17, April.
    3. Elizabeth A. Minton & Cindy X. Wang & Carissa M. Anthony, 2022. "Prosocial responses to global crises: Key influences of religiosity and perceived control," Journal of Consumer Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 56(2), pages 491-511, June.
    4. Denni Arli & Patrick Esch & Yuanyuan Cui, 2023. "Who Cares More About the Environment, Those with an Intrinsic, an Extrinsic, a Quest, or an Atheistic Religious Orientation?: Investigating the Effect of Religious Ad Appeals on Attitudes Toward the E," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 185(2), pages 427-448, June.
    5. Didem Kurt & Ahmet C. Kurt, 2021. "Religion and informational influence: Evidence from individual tax behavior in the U.S," Journal of Consumer Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 55(3), pages 821-846, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Shawhan, Daniel L. & Picciano, Paul D., 2019. "Costs and benefits of saving unprofitable generators: A simulation case study for US coal and nuclear power plants," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 124(C), pages 383-400.
    2. Abas, Naeem & Kalair, Ali Raza & Khan, Nasrullah & Haider, Aun & Saleem, Zahid & Saleem, Muhammad Shoaib, 2018. "Natural and synthetic refrigerants, global warming: A review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 557-569.
    3. Lawrence C. Pellegrini & Kimberley H. Geissler, 2019. "Supplemental Security Income enrollment and health care and social assistance employment and wages," International Journal of Health Planning and Management, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 34(4), pages 1319-1332, October.
    4. Rice, Thomas & Unruh, Lynn Y. & van Ginneken, Ewout & Rosenau, Pauline & Barnes, Andrew J., 2018. "Universal coverage reforms in the USA: From Obamacare through Trump," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 122(7), pages 698-702.
    5. Ghinea Valentina Mihaela & Cantaragiu Ramona Elena & Ghinea Mihalache, 2020. "FEED - Modeling the relationship between education and food waste," Proceedings of the International Conference on Business Excellence, Sciendo, vol. 14(1), pages 755-768, July.
    6. S. Wiley Wakeman & George Tsalis & Birger Boutrup Jensen & Jessica Aschemann-Witzel, 2022. "Seeing the Issue Differently (Or Not At All): How Bounded Ethicality Complicates Coordination Towards Sustainability Goals," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 178(2), pages 325-338, June.
    7. Azzurra Annunziata & Massimiliano Agovino & Aniello Ferraro & Angela Mariani, 2020. "Household Food Waste: A Case Study in Southern Italy," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(4), pages 1-13, February.
    8. Principato, Ludovica & Secondi, Luca & Cicatiello, Clara & Mattia, Giovanni, 2022. "Caring more about food: The unexpected positive effect of the Covid-19 lockdown on household food management and waste," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 82(PA).
    9. Efrat Elimelech & Eyal Ert & Ofira Ayalon, 2019. "Exploring the Drivers behind Self-Reported and Measured Food Wastage," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(20), pages 1-19, October.
    10. Taner, Oznur Oztuna, 2024. "Sustainable Food and Agriculture Production: Reducing Food Waste through Technological Advancements and Assessing its Economic Impact," Research on World Agricultural Economy, Nan Yang Academy of Sciences Pte Ltd (NASS), vol. 5(3), September.
    11. Mirza Marvel Cequea & Jessika Milagros Vásquez Neyra & Valentina Gomes Haensel Schmitt & Marcos Ferasso, 2021. "Household Food Consumption and Wastage during the COVID-19 Pandemic Outbreak: A Comparison between Peru and Brazil," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(14), pages 1-22, July.
    12. Noora Sirola & Ulla-Maija Sutinen & Elina Närvänen & Nina Mesiranta & Malla Mattila, 2019. "Mottainai!—A Practice Theoretical Analysis of Japanese Consumers’ Food Waste Reduction," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(23), pages 1-14, November.
    13. Ovidija Eičaitė & Gitana Alenčikienė & Ingrida Pauliukaitytė & Alvija Šalaševičienė, 2021. "Eat or Throw Away? Factors Differentiating High Food Wasters from Low Food Wasters," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(19), pages 1-16, September.
    14. Alba J. Collart & Matthew G. Interis, 2018. "Consumer Imperfect Information in the Market for Expired and Nearly Expired Foods and Implications for Reducing Food Waste," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(11), pages 1-17, October.
    15. Delley, Mathilde & Brunner, Thomas A., 2017. "Foodwaste within Swiss households: A segmentation of the population and suggestions for preventive measures," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 172-184.
    16. Yu, Yang & Jaenicke, Edward C., 2021. "The effect of sell-by dates on purchase volume and food waste," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 98(C).
    17. Brenna Ellison & Linlin Fan & Norbert L.W. Wilson, 2022. "Is it more convenient to waste? Trade‐offs between grocery shopping and waste behaviors," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 53(S1), pages 75-89, November.
    18. Sarra Jribi & Hanen Ben Ismail & Darine Doggui & Hajer Debbabi, 2020. "COVID-19 virus outbreak lockdown: What impacts on household food wastage?," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 22(5), pages 3939-3955, June.
    19. Talwar, Shalini & Kaur, Puneet & Kumar, Sushant & Salo, Jari & Dhir, Amandeep, 2022. "The balancing act: How do moral norms and anticipated pride drive food waste/reduction behaviour?," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    20. Claudia Giordano & Fabrizio Alboni & Luca Falasconi, 2019. "Quantities, Determinants, and Awareness of Households’ Food Waste in Italy: A Comparison between Diary and Questionnaires Quantities," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(12), pages 1-15, June.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:jconsa:v:54:y:2020:i:4:p:1246-1269. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0022-0078 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.