Hunger Effects on Option Quality for Hedonic and Utilitarian Food Products

Multiple studies have examined the extent to which consumers’ hunger levels predict their food choices and preference patterns. These investigations often involve making binary choices between hedonic and utilitarian foods. However, most consumers entering a grocery store are not restricted to solely selecting either hedonic or utilitarian foods. Rather, they typically choose both hedonic and utilitarian food options. Moreover, little is known about the effects of hunger on the quality of these food choices or consumers’ cognitive performance in food contexts. To address these gaps, the current study explored (1) whether experimentally induced hunger (vs. satiation) influenced the option quality of consumers’ chosen food items (i.e., the match between actual choices and stated preferences); (2) whether this potential interplay was contingent on the food category (hedonic vs. utilitarian); and (3) whether hungry (vs. satiated) consumers’ performance differed on cognitively challenging tasks. The results revealed that hunger did not lead to a generalized decrease in consumers’ option quality. However, option quality was inferior for utilitarian—but not hedonic—foods among hungry participants, whereas no such differences were found for satiated participants. Hungry (vs. satiated) consumers also performed significantly worse on cognitively demanding tasks, underscoring the far-reaching consequences of hunger on consumers’ decision-making. Together, the current research offers a novel way of testing whether and how hunger influences the quality of consumers’ chosen food items in both hedonic and utilitarian food categories.