Nature of the publicationJournal article
Title of the publicationThe Association Between the Attitude of Food-Waste-Aversion and BMI: An Exploration in India and the United States
Journal name/Book publisherJournal of Consumer Psychology
DOIdoi.org
Abstract

This research proposes the existence of a hitherto undocumented attitude related to food wastage: the attitude of food-waste-aversion. We develop a 6-item scale including affective, cognitive, and conative components to measure this attitude and empirically investigate its properties in two countries using novel datasets. We test for food-waste-aversion scale's convergent validity by demonstrating that it is correlated in the expected direction with five theoretically related constructs—frugality, social responsibility, spendthriftness, self-control, and materialism (Studies 1a and 1b)—and with BMI (Studies 2 and 3). We provide more indirect evidence of the scale's convergent validity by documenting that the link between food-waste-aversion and BMI is attenuated among those who practice refrigerating leftovers (Study 3). We also document that the food-waste-aversion scale is distinct from general waste aversion and external meal-cessation rules, thus providing evidence of discriminant validity (Studies 1a, 1b, and 1c). Taken together, these results provide construct validity for the novel construct of food-waste-aversion. We discuss the theoretical and substantive contributions of our findings.

Author #1Rajagopal Raghunathan
Affiliation Author #1The University of Texas at Austin
Author #2Deepa Chandrasekaran
Affiliation Author #2The University of Texas at San Antonio