Meeting 5: expectations
SOURCE: YAMIN
This study examines the “warm is calorie-rich” intuition. The “warm is calorie-rich” intuition is
important for marketers and managers because warm food temperatures can increase willingness to
pay (by 25%) and amount served (27%), as well as influence consumer preferences. This intuition also
has important public policy implications: consumers tend to underestimate the nutritional value of
cold foods, resulting in increased consumption of calories (31%) and fat (37%).
Food temperature is a central aspect of human nutrition, often stressed in marketing
communication. The ‘’warm is calorie-rich’’ intuition can be explained that consumers think that
warm food is more filling and tastier. Humans digest cooked food better than raw food, such that
they extract more energy from cooked foods and the consumption for warm foods as main meals is a
common and cross-cultural practice. Such learned experiences with food temperature prompt
people to perceive warm foods as more filling and make related assumptions about their nutritional
value and calorie content. Warmer temperatures also physiologically improve food tastiness
perceptions, which could be linked to calorie richness too.
This intuition can bias their consumption decisions. It can misguide consumers to believe that cold
foods contain fewer calories than warm ones, resulting in additional and increased calorie
consumption.
Why the warm is calroie rich intuition?
(The basic objectives of food intake; satisfy hunger & achieve pleasure):
o Easier to digest: main meals consist of heated foods, also because of the higher
energy gain. Cooking food can denature proteins, break proteins’ complex chains and
increase the speed of digestion. In the evolution we have seen that this means it
increases the variety of foods than humans can digest and absorb.
Considering the essential role of eating habits (eating warm meal for dinner), in social life
and the fact that most meals eaten with the purpose of achieving satiety are warm
across cultures, we anticipate that strong associative links between food temperature
and its capacity to provide fullness (i.e., filling properties) are anchored in human minds.
o Palatability: warm foods are more palatable (higher sensory experience of tastiness.
Warm liquids, for example, activate the insular taste cortex (identified by glucose
taste stimuli), improving pleasantness perceptions. Cooking also increases the
availability of glutamate, responsible for taste preferences and this intra-oral
pleasantness evoked by warm food is represented in brain activity.
Tastiness and fillingness are both linked to calorie judgments. The more tasty and filling a
product, the more calorie-dense. We refer to this intuitive belief as the “warm is calorie-
rich” intuition.
H1: Food products that are warm (vs. cold) are inferred to be more calorie-rich. Supported!
Consequences of this intuition:
Serving an item warm or cold does not change the calorie content of the food. People have an innate
preference for energy-rich foods, they serve themselves more when having a cold meal (and more
side dishes) and they are willing to pay more for the warm meal (higher monetary value).
H2a–c: Temperature-induced calorie inferences lead consumers to (a) be willing to pay more, (b)
serve themselves more, and (c) favor warm food relative to cold food. Supported!
,The consequences of the intuition (though not the intuition itself) may be moderated by people’s
consumption motivation. (for instance, if someone is on a diet he/she is not willing to pay more for a
warm product because they don’t want more calories).
H3a, b: The positive effect of warm (vs. cold) food temperature on product choice is mitigated (or
reversed) when (a) health or (b) dieting goals are active during consumption judgments.
Eight studies were used:
Study 1A: examining the association between temperature and calorie expectations with a
computer-based reaction time test, the implicit association test (IAT). People have to make pairs
between food and their calorie content, making fast pairs indicate that concepts are more closely
associated.
Results: reaction time was significantly shorter for pairing warm and calorie rich, indicating that the
intuition exists. It was found that the intuition is wide spread and present in all participants with
different characteristics, even if people deny and reject the intuition, they actually use it.
Study 1B: tests whether consumers rely on temperature cues to draw conclusions about the calorie
content of a product, as well as whether calorie inferences are rooted in tastiness and fillingness
perceptions. Participants evaluated food products offered on a restaurant menu, they were labelled
either cold or hot. Then they were asked to indicate how many calories are in each product, their
perception of filliness and tastiness (just what they think they cannot taste!).
Results: participants judged the warm product to be tastier and more filling than the cold one.
Mediating effects of both fillingness and tastiness are found for the calorie inferences, it are two
distinct mechanisms.
Study 2: demonstrates that the fillingness and tastiness perceptions of warm products lead to calorie
inferences, which influence willingness to pay. Participants judged the same product (bread) either
served warm or cold. After this participants indicated how many calories they thought was in it, their
perception of the tastiness and fillingness and also their willingness to pay.
Results: These results show that the effect of food temperature on calorie inferences incrementally
, operated through fillingness and tastiness perceptions, both paths are unique. Warm temperature
enhanced willingness to pay by 40 cents, signaling a temperature premium of +38%.
Study 3: explores if product temperature influences the consumption (i.e., amount served) of an
individual product. We assess the amount of a product (popcorn), hot or cold, consumers serve
themselves. We reinforced the temperature manipulation with a sign (i.e., “Please be careful
because the tray might be hot [cold] and heavy”). Participants were after this asked to indicate their
perception of fillingness and tastiness and they had to leave their filled bag.
Results: participants served themselves more popcorn when it was warm rather than cold. The
parallel mediation indicates that the temperature effect on the amount of popcorn served operated
through both fillingness and tastiness perceptions.
Study 4: they examined the health option and calorie-restraining in relation to the consumers choice
between hot and cold foods. Consumption goals do not influence the inferential belief but rather
how consumers leverage that belief in their decisions.
Results: the effect of temperature cues on choice depends on the active consumption goal: if
pleasure guides the purchase (as in many food decisions), consumers favor warm over cold food. If
instead health goals drive their decision, this preference disappears, because more calories do not
help these consumers reach their goal