Conditioning specific positive states to unfamiliar flavours influences flavour liking

Food products can have significant influence on consumers’ affective states. Flavours can be used to evoke affective states, and affective information has been shown to influence how much of a beverage is consumed. In this study we investigated whether novel flavours could be conditioned to two different specific positive states (“feeling active” and “feeling relaxed”). We associated flavours with these states by using different types of positive film clips and tested how this influenced liking and different behavioural attributes using implicit measures, in particular self-focus and activity. Participants consumed one of two unfamiliar flavoured drinks (one liked and one neutral) for five consecutive days while watching film clips evoking active, relaxed, or neutral states. We examined the levels of activity and self-focus evoked by the conditioned drinks using implicit measures. Activity was higher in the active film clip condition than in the neutral control condition. For the liked flavour, positive conditioning reduced initial liking, compared to the control condition. The pattern was different for the neutral flavour. Results show that it is possible to condition flavours to induce specific positive states and that this process affects product liking.

Research highlights
► It is possible to condition different levels of activity to novel drinks by using video clips as US.
► Effects of positive conditioning on liking depended on the flavour.
► It is possible to condition flavours to induce specific positive states.
► Conditioning positive states to flavours affects product liking.