As medicinal cuisine gains global attention for its health-promoting benefits, this study aims to examine how different messaging strategies (nutrition-focused vs medicine-focused) influence consumer perceptions and behavioral intentions, with a focus on the interplay among message framing, individual traits and cultural orientation.
Three scenario-based restaurant experiments were conducted. Studies 1 and 2 tested the interaction between message framing and naturalness preference on attitude among Chinese and US consumers, respectively. Study 3 further examined food neophobia as a moderator and health enhancement expectancy and perceived taste as parallel mediators.
The effectiveness of message framing depends on the alignment between the construal level implied by message framing (nutrition- vs medicine-focused) and the dominant construal level stemming from either personal traits or cultural orientation. Moreover, when construal levels derived from individual traits and cultural background conflict, cultural orientation may override individual traits in determining which construal level is activated and used for message interpretation.
The findings offer implications for food marketing, public health messaging and cultural food literacy.
This research extends construal level theory by showing that cultural background may exert a stronger, little or weaker influence than personal traits in activating construal levels for interpreting information, depending on situations where cultural orientation has a strong or weak influence in fostering the personal trait of interest (e.g. naturalness preference). It also links construal levels with naturalness preference and food neophobia in food perception.
