Decomposing attitudes towards food leftovers: Implications for general attitude, intention and behavior

The purpose of this paper is to enhance the understanding about the determinants of consumer food leftovers in out-of-home settings by taking a decomposed perspective on attitudes.

Data on 307 guests in a university canteen composing of stated measures for 12 beliefs, general attitude and behavioral intention and of visually estimated food leftovers are analyzed using exploratory factor and path analyses.

A factor analysis for belief statements derives three distinctive and potentially conflicting attitude dimensions: “Environment,” “Self-Interest” and “Resources.” Path analyses on their interrelation with general attitude, intention and behavior indicate that the dimensions have distinctive effects. Moreover, “Self-Interest” in contrast to the other two dimensions is correlated with situational perceptions about portion size and taste when these are included as direct determinants of leftovers.

It is recommended to consider different dimensions of attitude when addressing food leftover behavior since these dimensions may not be well represented in a classical summary construct and since their relevance may differ depending on situational factors. Additional research is recommended to validate the results for more representative samples of consumers and to elaborate on the interaction of different attitude dimensions as potential source of attitude ambivalence which cannot clearly be determined from the existing data.

Past research on consumer food waste behavior models attitudes exclusively as a summary construct. This contradicts qualitative findings that individuals may hold conflicting beliefs about food leftovers.