Differences in Consumer Abstraction Levels as a Function of Risk Perception

This study investigates factors affecting consumer purchase choice (cognitive structures) in two foods with different perceived risk levels. Means-end chain methodology is used to test for differences in the degrees of abstraction and complexity in the purchase decision process for each product. The results reveal significant differences, with more food safety issues coming into play in the case of the product associated with higher perceived risk in the past. This might suggest a non-temporal effect on consumers' level of risk perception in food products, with important implications for crisis management. Furthermore, logit models estimated to investigate the health impact of foods show that age and income have played a role in turning this credence attribute into a key element of consumer choice. Copyright (c) 2009 The Authors. Journal compilation (c) 2009 The Agricultural Economics Society.