Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
3
Should I Buy Organic Food? A Psychological
Perspective on Purchase Decisions
Christian A. Klöckner
Norwegian University of Science and Technology
Norway
1. Introduction
The individual consumer - although placed at the end of the production chain - plays an
important role in establishing and developing the market for organic food. It is the final
purchase in a supermarket, in a health-food shop or on a farmers' market that creates the
demand that eventually sustains organic agriculture. Purchasing food is by no means a
simple decision. It can be split into a series of interlaced decisions such as: When do I do my
food shopping (e.g., after work, on a Saturday, under time pressure or not)? Where do I go
(e.g., local supermarket, hypermarket, health-food store, farmers' market)? How much
money do I want to or can I afford to spend? Which classes of products do I want to
purchase? Within each class: what is the specific produce I purchase? Decisions made earlier
in this chain impact the context of decisions made later. If for example a decision for
shopping in a supermarket instead of a health-food store is made the variety of produces is
different which impacts the produces that are taken into consideration. If food shopping is
done under time pressure, time invested to make decisions is dramatically reduced and
mental shortcuts or routines take control. Furthermore, the decision process might be non-
linear, jumping back and forth between some of the aforementioned levels.
Psychological research has produced a large number of studies that allow insight into the
complexities of this decision making process. It has been shown that consumers' purchase
decisions at a given point in time and in a specific context are determined by a variety of
psychological and contextual factors and their interactions. Some of them will be reviewed
in this chapter. Based on previous research the following aspects will be discussed: How do
values, attitudes and concerns for health or the environment impact the purchase of organic
food? How do visibility, availability and perception of prices contribute? What is the role of
trust? How can environmental and health psychological models contribute to
understanding organic food purchase? How are organic food labels perceived and used in
decision making? Finally, an integrated framework model will be suggested in the last
section before drawing conclusions for future research.
2. General motives to buy organic food: Values, concerns and attitudes
One tradition in psychological research on the purchase of organic food produce focuses on
identifying general motivations that may lead to favouring organic agriculture and
eventually preferring the organic over the conventionally produced alternative when
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