VARIETY SEEKING BAHAVIOR AMONG THE POOR
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VARIETY SEEKING BAHAVIOR AMONG THE POOR
The influence of financial dissatisfaction on variety seeking in healthy and unhealthy food resources.
by
STEFAN DE JONGE University of Groningen Faculty of Economics and Business
4 SUMMARY
Income inequality has increased in most developed countries having psychological and behavioral consequences for people with lower incomes. One of the unexplored aspects is whether financial dissatisfaction increases tendency to seek variety. We assumed that poverty is strongly linked to an individual’s intrapersonal factors and future uncertainty and therefor to drive variety seeking behavior. The main aspect of this study is to investigate the effect of financial dissatisfaction on variety seeking in both healthy and unhealthy food resources. A second aspect of the study is to investigate the potential mediating role of an individual’s sense of control.
This study had a sample size of n = 285 participants (MAge = 36.67, SD= 12.93, RangeAge = 19
_ 76, 160 female). The experiment used a 2 financially (satisfied vs dissatisfied) x 2 variety seeking (healthy vs unhealthy food domain) between participants design. Participants were randomly assigned to an experimental condition. After a financial satisfaction manipulation task a randomizer presented pictures of healthy or unhealthy food of what participants had to indicate their preferred choice.
Results indicate that people who experience financial dissatisfaction show higher levels of variety seeking behavior (M = 3.597, SD = 1.306) than participants experiencing financial satisfaction did (M = 3.260, SD = 1.244). These findings were in line with the main hypotheses that financial dissatisfaction increases variety seeking behavior.
Second, it was hypothesized that dissatisfied people specifically seek more variety in unhealthy, more rewarding food resources. Due to a limited sample size of about 70 person per cell findings were not significant here, although the pattern of results indicates a generalized increase in variety seeking behavior for both healthy and unhealthy food domains.
5 PREFACE
Before you lies the master thesis “Variety seeking behavior among the poor. The influence of financial dissatisfaction on variety seeking in healthy and unhealthy food resources.” what I wrote to fulfill the graduation requirements of the Master Marketing program of the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen.
When writing this I realize that, after an extensive academic journey, I am on the edge of graduating and leaving the University to start working on my career. I hope I will enjoy this new phase in my life as much as I did enjoy my student period. With the knowledge and skills acquired during this period I know there will be something wonderful on my path soon. Over a period of 5 months, from February till June, I worked on investigating the topic of variety seeking behavior and wrote the thesis with the help of my supervisor Mehrad Jazani. I would like to thank him for that and especially the extensive review sessions we had together. They helped me a lot in polishing up my thesis. I would also like to write a special note of thank to my parents, who provided budget for me to gather sufficient data via MTurk.
I hope you enjoy reading.
6 TABLE OF CONTENT 1. INTRODUCTION ... 7 2. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK ... 8 2.1 Financial dissatisfaction ... 8 2.2 Variety Seeking ... 8 2.3 Hypotheses ... 10 3. DESIGN ... 12 3.1 Procedure ... 12 4. RESULTS ... 14
4.1 Exploring the main effect of financial dissatisfaction ... 14
4.2 Exploring underlying role of sense of control ... 15
5. CONCLUSION ... 17
5.1 Discussion ... 17
5.2 Recommendations ... 18
REFERENCES ... 20
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1. INTRODUCTION
One of the problems today’s society faces is the increasing wealth gap between the poor and rich. Income inequality has increased in most developed countries over the past 25 years, resulting in both psychological and behavioral consequences for people with lower incomes than others in their social environment (Briers and Laporte 2013). Research findings provided evidence for the detrimental effect of poverty on psychological factors and behavior. For instance, financially dissatisfied individuals are more likely to act in a harmful way that affect their own health (Katz and Hofer 1994; Mani et al. 2013; Vohs 2013). Poverty provides a lack of resources and causes stress, what may shift people’s attention toward short-term needs, even at the expense of longer-term goals (Bickel et al. 2016). Other research suggest poverty increases people’s desire for caloric food (Briers and Laporte 2013).
So, both psychological and behavioral consequences associated with poverty are of growing scientific and societal importance.One of the unexplored aspects of poverty is whether lack of financial resources increases tendency to increase variety. In this study the aim is to explore if financial deprivation influences variety seeking tendency of individuals.
The society we live in these days provides individuals with numerous marketing stimuli. In many consumption decisions people are faced with multiple choice options (Goodman and Vohs 2013). This decision difficulty seems to lead consumers to purchase more options and seek variety (Goodman, Broniarzcyk, Griffin, and McAlister 2013). The last decade marketers have studied this tendency of consumers to seek variety among the purchases they make. In this study I try to further assess the phenomena of variety seeking. Given the relationship between poverty and psychological and behavioral consequences, I investigate the effect of financial dissatisfaction on variety seeking in both healthy and unhealthy domains of food choices. A second aspect of the study is to investigate the potential mediating role of an individual’s sense of control.
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2. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK 2.1 Financial dissatisfaction
People are likely to compare themselves with others in order to judge ‘how they are doing’ (Festinger 1954). In terms of evaluating their own financial situation most individuals rely on external reference information (Bazerman, Loewenstein, and White 1992). How satisfied they are with this situation largely depends of their relative judgement of financial resources driven by social comparisons and perceptional or subjective appraisals (Briers and Laporte 2013). Financial dissatisfaction is defined as an individual’s psychological state to which people believe that their financial situation restricts desired consumption (Tully et al. 2015).
In the United States the relative prevalence of financially constrained is evident (Lusardi et al. 2011; Moore 2013). Given this, research on the effect of financial dissatisfaction on consumption is still limited (Tully et al. 2015). A broader search in both economics and psychology domains indicate that relative financial dissatisfaction leads to greater stress, anger, and resentment (Wilkinson and Pickett 2009), predicts less happiness and well-being (Frank 1985), and promotes self-enhancements tendency (Crosby 1976; Kawakami and Dion 1995). Research also shows that people who are experiencing financial dissatisfaction are motivated to overcome this situation by finding ways of gaining resources (Blalock, Just, and Simon 2007; Bowles and Park 2005; Callan et al. 2008; Haisley, Mostafa, and Loewenstein 2008; Neumark and Postlewaite 1998). Findings suggest financially dissatisfied people play the lottery more often (Blalock, Just, and Simon 2007; Callan et al. 2008; Haisley, Mostafa, and Loewenstein 2008) and try to compensate for their low relative income with increased labor supply (Bowles and Park 2005). Importantly, people seek to acquire resources that are not directly related to financial domains, but bring about functional benefits (e.g. food domains). The resource exchange theory states people are likely to exchange functionally related resources (Foa and Foa 1974) and several studies have shown effects for financial and food resources as interchangeable (Briers et al. 2006; Nelson and Morrison 2005; Pettijohn and Jungeberg 2004). To particular interests to our current research a study by Briers and Laporte (2013) show that people who experience financial dissatisfaction show increased tendency to choose food that is higher in calories, presumably to compensate for lack of resources.
2.2 Variety Seeking
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seeking behavior can be identified: (1) intrapersonal factors, (2) uncertainty about future preferences and (3) external factors.
The dominant view in consumer research is that consumers tend to seek variety due to intrapersonal reasons. The concept of an optimal stimulation level (OSL) is central in theories that explain variety seeking through intrapersonal factors (Sharma et al. 2010; Hoyer and Ridgway 1984; Orth 2005; Orth and Bourrain 2005; Raju 1980, 1983; Van Trijp and Steenkamp 1992). OSL is seen as a personality characteristic that affects an individual’s consumption behavior (Eliashberg and Sawhney 1994; Van Trijp and Steenkamp 1992). Other personality traits identified to influence such behavior are self-monitoring, self-control and impulsiveness (Punj 2010). Variety seeking is the result of individuals feeling satiated with consuming the same product attributes (e.g. physical and sensory) such as format, flavor and color (McAlistair 1982). Consumers seek variety in their attempt to balance product attributes to maximize utility (Farquhar and Rao 1976).
Some further research is conducted on the effect of the affective state on variety seeking (Kahn and Isen 1993; Roehm and Roehm 2005; Chieng-Huang 2012). Results indicate that sad individuals tend to incorporate more variety seeking than happy ones but also notice there is little empirical evidence on the effect of a negative affective state on variety seeking (Chieng-Huang 2012). Therefore the notion of studying the effect of more specific emotions on variety seeking, rather than general positive or negative feelings comes forward (DeSteno, Petty, Wegener, and Rucker 2000; Garg, Inman, and Mittal 2005).
Uncertainty consumers have about their future preferences is identified as second main driver for variety seeking behavior. This is especially the case in multiple purchases for future consumption (Kahn 1995; Kahn and Lehman 1991; Simonson 1990, Simonson and Winer 1992). As a results of this future uncertainty consumers try to simplify the shopping task by relying on choice heuristics (Hoyer and Ridgway 1984; Orth 2005; Orth and Bourrain 2005; Raju 1980, 1983; Van Trijp and Steenkamp 1992). This leads consumers to seek more variety in their purchases in attempt to minimize conflict and difficulty associated with their choice (Goodman and Vohs 2013).
10 2.3 Hypotheses
Financial dissatisfied people believe that their financial situation restricts desired consumption. This might lead them to seek ways to gain resources and can increase their level of consumption to meet an optimal stimulation level. Results of a series of studies conducted by Briers and Laporte (2013) showed that experimentally induced financial dissatisfaction increases the amount of food actually eaten. In line with the resource exchange theory of Foa and Foa (1974), findings suggest that people tend to seek additional resources and consume food for its energy value in order to restore their level of satisfaction. However the literature of today is not clear about if people who do this also seek more variety in their consumption choices.
Future uncertainty associated with peoples financial situation might be a second driver for increased variety. Financially dissatisfied people tend to minimize conflict and difficulty associated with their choice in order to do not miss out in the future. As a result of this future uncertainty consumers tend to rely on choice heuristics in their attempt to minimize conflict and difficulty, leading them to choose an increased level of variety.
Build on the described literature, it is hypothesized that in order to obtain higher levels of stimulation or to avoid possible future uncertainty financially dissatisfied people tend to seek more variety in their food choices.
H1: Relative financial dissatisfaction increases variety seeking behavior of consumers compared to people who are relatively financially satisfied.
Build on the assumption that poverty increases variety seeking in food choices, this might or might not be true for all domains. In order to explore the boundaries of this effect in food domains we compare healthy and unhealthy food choices. Evidence found that poverty induces people’s sensitivity for rewards (Bickel et al. 2016) and increases the likelihood to act in a harmful way that affects their own health (Katz and Hofer 1994; Mani et al. 2013; Vohs 2013). Briers and Laporte (2013) state that financially dissatisfied people prefer high caloric food over low caloric food. Consumption of high caloric food is seen as more rewarding but unhealthy behavior. It is hypothesized that poverty might lead people to seek more variety in rewarding but unhealthy high caloric options.
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H2b: Financially dissatisfied people seek more variety in general for both healthy and unhealthy food resources.
One of the goals of this research was to explore one of the potential underlying mechanisms of variety seeking tendency. Personality characteristics play an important role in an individual’s consumption choice behavior. Optimal stimulation level, impulsiveness, selfmonitoring, and -control are found to influence choice behavior of people. Lachman and Weaver (1998) provide evidence that such psychosocial variables play a role in social class differences. People in lower social classes are perceived to have less sense of control. Poor individuals perceive less sense of control over their own future what might increase their future uncertainty. According to Lachman and Weaver (1998) sense of control consists out of two dimensions. Personal mastery refers to one’s sense of efficacy in carrying out goals and perceived constraints relates to one’s belief there are obstacles or factors beyond their control that interfere with reaching goals (Lachman and Weaver 1998).
For this study it is assumed that sense of control has a mediating role in the relationship between financial satisfaction and variety seeking. One who feels financially dissatisfied might feel high levels of perceived constraints and low levels of personal mastery, resulting in increased levels of variety seeking. People who feel financially satisfied are expected to have higher levels of personal mastery and lower levels of perceived constraints, resulting in decreased levels of variety seeking behavior.
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Figure 1 shows a conceptual representation of these hypotheses and the relationships between the different concepts.
Financial
(dis)satisfaction Sense of Control Variety Seeking
Reward type
Figure 1. Conceptual model
3. DESIGN
The experiment used a 2 financially (satisfied vs dissatisfied) x 2 variety seeking (healthy vs unhealthy food domain) between participants design. Participants were asked to complete an anonymous survey using Qualtrics online software. Subjects are first being randomly assigned to the satisfied or dissatisfied condition and after this randomly assigned to the healthy or unhealthy domain. Participants for this study were recruited by Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk). MTurk participants are generally more diverse and older than participants in student samples (Buhrmester, Kwang, and Gosling 2011).
A total of 291 MTurk participants completed the study in exchange for a financial compensation of $0.70 per participant. Everyone participated voluntary and were only compensated if they completed the online experiment. After inspection of the data 6 participants were excluded from analyses because they did not follow the instructions as mentioned and or did not complete the survey correct. This results in a total sample size for this study of n = 285 participants (MAge =
36.67, SD= 12.93, RangeAge = 19 _ 76, 160 female).
3.1 Procedure
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preferred choice. The survey ended with asking participants about demographical and personal characteristics and took approximately 5-10 minutes to fill it in.
Participants were randomly assigned to a financial condition. To induce financially dissatisfied feelings we adopted the procedure that has been used in previous literature (Haisley, Mostafa, and Loewenstein 2008; Nelson and Morrison 2005; Briers and Laporte 2013). More specifically, in the financially dissatisfied condition participants were asked to indicate their monthly income on a sliding scale ranging from $0 to $50.000. In the financially satisfied condition a sliding scale ranging from $0 to $2.000 was used. Responses at the top or the bottom of a scale cause people to make inferences about their personal situations (Schwarz 1999). In order to further strengthen this effect participants were given feedback about their situation. People in the financially dissatisfied condition saw a text telling them they were financially constrained and they lack financial resources. They were then asked to write about factors that limit their financial resources in daily life (e.g., mortgage or rent, expenses, lack of income, etc) and reflect on how it feels to be financially inadequate and to know that they do not have sufficient money to use at their will or when required in daily life, relative to those who have more than sufficient disposable income and financial resources.
People in the financially satisfied condition saw a text telling them they had adequate and sufficient amount of financial resources (i.e., money), relative to others. They were then asked to write about how it feels to be financially adequate and to know that they have sufficient money to use at their will or when required in daily life, relative to other people who do not. They were asked to consider carefully and vividly how their life is with sufficient amount of money and what the consequences of having sufficient money to live a good and adequate life are.
To measure participants sense of control the approach described by Lachman and Weaver (1998) was adopted. Four questions on a 7-point Likert scale were asked about personal mastery and the average of this questions indicates the level of personal mastery. For the level of perceived constraints there were five questions on a 7-point Likert scale of which the average was calculated to indicate their level of perceived constraints.
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order with their vouchers. Participants were explicitly made clear they could choose any combinations of items below (e.g., 1 of each item, 5 of just one item, etc.) as long as the items total five. The pictures of salads represents low caloric and healthier food. Pictures of desserts represents high caloric and unhealthier food. Variety seeking is measured by counting the number of food items each participant chose at least once.
In last part of the survey other potential moderators, covariates and background information of the participant is collected. Gender, age, income, educational degree, ethnic background, height and weight (to calculate Body Mass Index) had to be indicated. Because this study tries to assess choices concerning food we asked to indicate on a 7-point Likert scale how concerned they are with their caloric intake, how health conscious they are and if they are under any diet. To account for hunger or thirst when completing the survey we also asked to indicate this.
Finally, established measures were used for perceived childhood SES (Griskevicius, Delton, et al. 2011; Griskevicius, Tybur, et al. 2011) and participant mood states (Watson, Clark and Tellegen 1988). The conditions being manipulated in the survey are included in appendix A.
Plan of analyses
In order to analyze the data, first MS Excel is used to clean the data and calculate appropriate measurement averages. Second, the data was imported into IBM SPSS Statistics (version 23) for quantitative analyses. Data were analyzed using ANOVA and regression techniques. To establish mediation and moderated mediation both PROCESS model 4 and model 14 as described by Hayes (2013) were used.
4. RESULTS
4.1 Exploring the main effect of financial dissatisfaction
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Results show there is no significant interaction effect (F (1, 281) = 0.208, p = 0.648) between the two factors indicating that the poor show variety seeking independent of the food options. To further delineate this effect within each food domain we performed contrast analyses. Results show that within the financially satisfied condition there was a significant interaction effect (F (1, 281) = 3.643, p = 0.057). Financially satisfied people seek more variety in unhealthy, high caloric options (M = 3.470, SD = 1.338) compared to more healthy, low caloric options (M = 3.046, SD = 1.110). Although there is a difference in the financially dissatisfied condition between unhealthy, high caloric options (M = 3.740, SD = 1.418) compared to more healthy, low caloric options (M = 3.445, SD = 1.176) the results were not significant (F (1, 281) = 1.949, p = 0.164). Figure 2 show these differences among the four groups.
Figure 2. Mean level of variety seeking per condition.
4.2 Exploring underlying role of sense of control
To test the underlying role of sense of control regression techniques are applied. To establish a possible mediation effect of sense of control PROCESS model 4 (Hayes 2013) was used with financial dissatisfaction acting as independent variable, variety seeking as dependent variable and perceived constraints and personal mastery as mediator variables. Results show the financial dissatisfied manipulation significantly influenced both dimensions of sense of control (p < .005), but there was no significant indirect effect from sense of control on variety seeking. Figure 3 shows the beta coefficients and displays a significant direct effect of financial
2,5 3,0 3,5 4,0
Financial dissatisfaction Financial satisfaction
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dissatisfaction on variety seeking. All 95% confidence intervals for the indirect effect included 0 so there is no significant mediation effect.
Financial dissatisfaction Sense of Control Variety Seeking 0.551 p = .000 .305 p = .050 0.060 p = .326
Figure 3. Regression coefficients of mediation effect.
A final regression technique tested if there was a moderated mediation effect. To establish a possible moderated mediation effect PROCESS model 14 (Hayes 2013) was used with financial dissatisfaction acting as independent variable, variety seeking as dependent variable, perceived constraints and personal mastery as mediator variables and reward type as moderator. Results again show the financial dissatisfied manipulation significantly influenced both dimensions of sense of control (p < .005) but all other indirect effects were not significant. Figure 4 shows the beta coefficients and displays a significant direct effect of financial dissatisfaction on variety seeking (p = 0.045). All 95% confidence intervals for the indirect effect included 0 so there is no significant moderated mediation effect.
Financial dissatisfaction Sense of Control Variety Seeking 0.551 p = .000 0.311 p = .045 0.002 p = .986 Reward type 0.089 p = .450
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5. CONCLUSION
In the study described in this paper, the aim was to explore if variety seeking behavior is affected by people who experience financial dissatisfaction and if intrapersonal factors such as sense of control could mediate this behavior. In line with the first hypotheses the results show that variety seeking behavior increases among people who experience relative financial dissatisfaction. This indicates that poor people seek more variety in their food consumption choices. Second, it was hypothesized that dissatisfied people specifically seek more variety in unhealthy, more rewarding food resources. We found no evidence for that, indicating that poverty increases a generalized tendency for variety seeking. This results are in line with hypotheses 2b. A third hypotheses assumed a mediating role of sense of control. We found no evidence for this possible mediating role.
5.1 Discussion
As described in chapter two, findings in variety seeking literature suggest intrapersonal factors, uncertainty about future preferences and external factors to drive variety seeking behavior. In order to account for possible marketing influences in our research, we choose products of the same attractiveness in the same food category and participants all have to make five choices in total.
We considered and tested for several potential covariates to influence the results. Because participants have to make choices regarding food domains we asked for their hunger, thirst and time since their last meal. We also assume potential health concerns, diets or an individual’s Body Mass Index to be covariates. All covariates found to have no significant influence on the results. Our study does not take into account external factors to drive variety seeking by means of advertisement or other marketing influences on behavior.
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indicate the effect is stronger for poor people choosing in the low caloric domain, we argue this result. A limited sample size, resulting in an average of about 70 person per cell, can explain this insignificant difference. Unless this relative small sample size the pattern of results indicates a generalized increase in variety seeking behavior for both food domains.
A second line of thought was that poverty leads people to have less opportunities and experiences in their life. This increases an individual’s uncertainty about their future and makes them less adequate in choosing for future consumption. Results indicate a clear and significant relationship between both dimensions of sense of control. The financial dissatisfaction manipulation of the study influences an individual’s sense of control. Poor people experience higher levels of perceived constraints and lower levels of personal mastery. Sense of control was hypothesized to mediate this relationship. Our findings indicate no significant mediation effect by sense of control.
Although findings from literature suggest that future uncertainty can increase variety seeking tendency, we did not find results for this. A possible explanation might be that, by measuring sense of control, we measured a different concept of future uncertainty. People’s uncertainty about their preferences in the future is a driver for variety seeking. Sense of control captures an individual’s perceived ability to influence and have control over their own future. In that way it makes sense that this is influenced by the financial dissatisfied manipulation, but has no effect on variety seeking.
5.2 Recommendations Future research
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states. It is likely that poverty increases negative mood states and therefore can play a mediating or moderating role in the relationship between financial dissatisfaction and variety seeking. In our study we focused on both intrapersonal factors and future uncertainty and tried to exclude possible external marketing influences. Variety seeking is influenced by external marketing factors such as price promotions and it is likely that this can play a role in the process. Poverty can either enhance or decrease the level of perceived transaction value influencing these marketing actions effectiveness. It might be worthwhile investigating how marketing actions like price promotions influences the relationship between financial dissatisfaction and variety seeking.
Managerial implications
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25 APPENDIX A. Survey manipulations
A.1 - Financial satisfaction manipulation
Using the slider on the bar, please indicate your monthly income (in US Dollar):
26 A.2 - Financial dissatisfaction manipulation
Using the slider on the bar, please indicate your monthly income (in US Dollar):
27
A.3 - Variety seeking for healthy, low caloric food resources
28
A.4 - Variety seeking unhealthy, high caloric food resources
