Disgusting? No, Just Different! Understanding Consumer Skepticism Towards Sustainable Food Innovations

Though desperately needed, consumers reject sustainable consumption alternatives which deviate far from the norm. Labgrown meat and insectbased meat substitutes, for instance, could revolutionize the food industry, but consumers are disgusted by both, arguing they are unnatural and carriers of disease respectively (Verbeke et al., 2015; Vanhonackeret al. 2013). Mapping perfectly onto textbook definitions of disgust elicitors like impurity and pathogens, consumer arguments been embraced as the obvious cause of these innovations’ failure—with limited success. We argue that addressing these consumer rationales has shown limited success as sustainable consumption alternatives are not rejected based on their inherent features. Instead, we find that consumers reject foods that are not normal to them because they are not normal to them and only post hoc rationalize their rejection. In the socialization process, norms—culture’s guidelines of what is normal and approved of—get internalized and are complied with as a goal in itself (Gintis, 2003). Important norms are more likely to be internalized (Villatoro et al. 2015) accordingly, internalized norms can be seen society’s important values. Any behaviors that oppose these will elicit moral disgust (Cottrell & Neuberg, 2005). While it is tempting to view disgust as an inherent feature accompanying specific products, we find that this is not the ultimate cause. The same product can be considered delicious or appalling, depending on one’s internalized norms. In other words, we argue sustainable consumption alternatives elicit disgust not because they are feared to be impure or unhealthy, but rather because they are considered abnormal.