Functional or constructive attitudes: Which type drives consumers' evaluation of meat products?

• Equivalent consumer attitudes for meat as a concept and as a product were gathered.
• The consumer attitude profiles were not stable between these two contexts.
• Significantly discriminating attitude profiles were gathered for meat as a concept.
• These attitude profiles collapsed when applied to product evaluations.
• This result is not consistent with food choice being driven by functional attitudes.

Consumer attitudes towards meat can be divided up into two types: Functional attitudes which are stable and exist over long periods of time, and constructive attitudes which are ephemeral and usually constructed at the point of sale. This research investigated the temporal and situational stability of meat consumers' attitudes by using the same established functional, multidimensional attitude instrument to generate attitude profiles for the four meat types: chicken/beef/lamb/poultry both as an abstracted construct and as a cue on a range of meat and meat-based products. The results showed that strong attitude profile was generated by the meat types as abstracted constructs, but that this profile broke down completely when the food products carrying the same meat types were evaluated. This result indicates that consumer attitudes may not be temporally or situationally stable, which in turn suggests that consumers' evaluation and choice of meat products may be driven to a greater or lesser extent by constructive rather than functional attitudes.