Should I Buy Organic Food? A Psychological Perspective on Purchase Decisions - Organic Food and Agriculture: New Trends and Developments in the Social Sciences - page 47

customers have in their private label organic product series which eventually impacts also
brand loyalty. Essoussi and Zahaf (2009) also found that organic food produced within your
own country is trusted more than imported organic food. Truninger (2006) used in depth
interviews to identify small size of the shop, personal bonding with the owner or personnel,
feeling of belonging to one community with shared values and interests with the producer
or vendor as determinants of trust. Furthermore, authenticity of organic food is validated by
the appearance of the product: Fruits and vegetables should for example not be too big, too
shiny, have small holes or bugs to be perceived as authentically organic. These findings put
an interesting ambiguity on the appearance factor of organic food: on the one hand
customers name sensory defects as barrier towards purchase of organic food (Hugher et al.,
2007), on the other hand are exactly these sensory defects used as indicators of authenticity
by other people. Maybe, the difference lies in the market segment: occasional buyers of
organic fruits and vegetables in supermarkets expect the same visual appearance from
organic than from conventional products, whereas more frequent buyers of organic food get
suspicious when presentation is too perfect and shiny.
5. Models of environmental behaviour applied to organic food purchase
Social psychological behaviour models have contributed significantly to understanding
environmentally relevant behaviour, its determinants and entry points for interventions to
change behaviour. The two models most prominently used in environmental psychology
today are the theory of planned behaviour (Ajzen, 1991) and the norm-activation theory
(Schwartz & Howard, 1981). The two following sections outline their main assumptions and
how the models have been used with respect to organic food purchase.
5.1 The theory of planned behaviour
The theory of planned behaviour (Ajzen, 1991) was not specifically developed to explain
organic food choice but all types of planned behaviour. Its main assumption is that
behaviour usually is under volitional control and is in such a case guided mainly by the
intention to perform it: an actor develops a will to perform a certain behaviour (e.g., buying
organic milk) and perceives it likely that this will happen. This intention is itself determined
by three different factors (see figure 2): (a) the attitude towards the behaviour, (b) social
norms, and (c) perceived behavioural control. The attitude is the sum of all beliefs about the
behaviour (see section 2.2). Beliefs are expected outcomes times evaluation of the outcomes
which makes the attitude a measure of favourability of a behavioural option. Social norms -
they were called subjective norms by Ajzen (1991) - are the perceived expectations of other
people: What do I think other people expect me to do in this situation? Is buying organic
milk socially acceptable? Would people that are important to me support me in doing that?
Would they expect it and probably sanction me for not doing it? Are other people's
expectations important to me for this particular behaviour? Social norms have been further
separated into injunctive and descriptive norms (Thøgersen, 2006). Injunctive norms are the
anticipated expectations of other people about what is right and what is wrong, what is
appropriate and what is not. Descriptive norms on the other hand are simply a
representation of what other people do. Perceived behavioural control, finally, is the degree
of control a person experiences over his or her behaviour. Is it easy for me to buy organic
milk? Are there external factors that prevent me from doing it (e.g., availability, restricted