The effect of health benefit information on consumers health value, attitudes and intentions

This research explored the effect of health benefit information on individuals' stated health value, attitudes towards functional/enriched foods, expectations, perceptions, and intentions to purchase a new fibre-enriched fish product. The study used a randomized design involving an experimental group receiving fibre and health information on the product and a control group who did not receive such information. The results indicated that consumers in the experimental group scored higher on the average attitudes towards functional/enriched foods than did consumers in the control group. No significant differences were observed for other variables. Following a value-attitude-behaviour approach, the study proposed a model relating consumers' health value to their attitudes towards functional/enriched foods, attitudes towards the new functional product and intention to purchase the product, and tested how information affected the structural model. Four of the seven relationships in the structural model proved to be moderated by information. For example, the results indicated that information constrained the association between the health value and product-related health perceptions or hedonic expectations, when individuals had negative attitudes towards the functional/enriched food products. Overall, the study advances the existing literature on the effects of information on consumer behaviour by adding insights into how information simultaneously influenced the mean values and the relationships among the health value, attitudinal factors and intention. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.