Short CommunicationFood pleasure orientation diminishes the “healthy = less tasty” intuition

- Consumers low in food pleasure orientation considered “healthy = less tasty”.
- They tended to choose a high (vs. low) caloric dessert after having a healthy-named food.
- The above effects attenuated when consumers are high in food pleasure orientation.

Previous research has shown a “healthy = less tasty” intuition. This intuition leads consumers to perceive a food with a healthy name as less tasty than the same food with an unhealthy name. The present study demonstrated that this effect of product name diminished or even reversed when consumers were high (vs. low) in food pleasure orientation. Specifically, consumers low in pleasure orientation evaluated a food item as less tasty when it had a healthy name (i.e., salad) than an unhealthy name (i.e., pasta), and they were more likely to choose a high-caloric dessert after the healthy-named (vs. unhealthy-named) item. In contrast, consumers high in pleasure orientation considered the healthy-named food tastier, and their subsequent choice of dessert was not influenced by the healthy or unhealthy name of the main course.