Abstract Food package labels can be used to influence consumers’ evaluation and purchasing behaviour, fostering sustainable consumption. Therefore, it is important to understand consumers’ emotional reaction to food package labels that convey sustainable information. The aim of the present research is to get a better understanding of the relation between consumers’ attitudes and emotional reactions often used to measure the effectiveness of a communication. Particularly, we focused on recyclability, assessing participants’ prior explicit and implicit attitudes towards recyclability and their emotional reaction to food packages featuring logos of (non-)recyclability. The emotional reaction was measured both at an explicit and at an implicit level, using direct (self-reported) and indirect (eye movement, facial expressions and pupil dilation) techniques respectively. Results showed that explicit attitudes predicted self-reported emotions, while implicit attitudes predicted the spontaneous emotional reactions, highlighting the importance to assess both explicit and implicit attitudes. Moreover, results showed that the relation between the time that people looked at the logo and the spontaneous emotional reaction was contingent upon the participant’s implicit attitudes. Finally, a follow-up analysis revealed that people with positive implicit attitudes towards recyclability were faster in detecting the recyclable logo and spent more time on processing the logo which on its turn resulted in better emotional reactions. Thus, the results suggest that implicit attitudes influence both visual attention and emotional reactions. Overall, the research contributes to a better understanding of the relation between prior attitudes and emotional reactions to food packaging, and supports the use of an approach that comprises both direct and indirect measures of attitudes and emotions.

中文翻译：

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对可持续标志的内隐/外显态度和情绪反应有何关联？一项神经生理学研究

摘要 食品包装标签可以影响消费者的评价和购买行为，促进可持续消费。因此，了解消费者对传达可持续信息的食品包装标签的情绪反应非常重要。本研究的目的是更好地了解消费者态度与通常用于衡量沟通有效性的情绪反应之间的关系。特别是，我们专注于可回收性，评估参与者之前对可回收性的显性和隐性态度以及他们对带有（非）可回收性标志的食品包装的情绪反应。使用直接（自我报告）和间接（眼动，面部表情和瞳孔扩张）技术。结果表明，外显态度预测了自我报告的情绪，而内隐态度预测了自发的情绪反应，强调了评估外显态度和内隐态度的重要性。此外，结果表明，人们看标志的时间与自发情绪反应之间的关系取决于参与者的内隐态度。最后，后续分析显示，对可回收性持积极内隐态度的人检测可回收标志的速度更快，并且在处理标志上花费的时间更多，从而导致更好的情绪反应。因此，结果表明内隐态度影响视觉注意和情绪反应。全面的，