LiCl-induced sickness modulates spontaneous activity and response dynamics in rat gustatory cortex.

Gustatory Cortex (GC), a structure deeply involved in the making of consumption decisions, presumably performs this function by integrating information about taste, experiences, and internal states related to the animal’s health, such as illness. Here, we investigated this assertion, examining whether illness is represented in GC activity, and how this representation impacts taste responses and behavior. We recorded GC single-neuron activity and local field potentials (LFP) from healthy rats and (the same) rats made ill ( via LiCl injection). We show (consistent with the extant literature) that the onset of illness-related behaviors arises contemporaneously with alterations in spontaneous 7-12Hz LFP power at ~11 min following injection. This process was accompanied by reductions in single-neuron taste response magnitudes and discriminability, and with enhancements in palatability-relatedness – a result reflecting the collapse of responses toward a simple “good-bad” code arising in a specific subset of GC neurons. Overall, our data show that a state (illness) that profoundly reduces consumption changes basic properties of the sensory cortical response to tastes, in a manner that can easily explain illness’ impact on consumption.

Italian wine sustainability: new trends in consumer behaviors for the millennial generation

PurposeThe role of sustainability is predominant in many aspects of consumer purchasing decisions. Millennials and young people are, in this field, potential players who buy and consume wine with ecosustainable decisions but, in the literature, these aspects are analyzed with nonuniform findings. This paper aims to investigate the wine consumption among young people belonging to the millennial generation, Y generation and Z generation considering also the gender.Design/methodology/approachThis study uses a questionnaire with 2000 respondents. The data are analyzed to understand consumption decisions in the wine sector. This information is analyzed through descriptive and inferential statistics (hypothesis test and multiple regression).FindingsThe results of the paper show a clear propensity to be sustainable of the young generation compared with the elderly, highlighting the role of Millennials. Moreover, considering gender, there is a greater sustainable wine tendency (considering both the environmental and the economic/decisional component) in female compared with male.Research limitations/implicationsThis work reflects the Italian reality of the pre-COVID-19 period. Obviously, the pandemic situation and the geographic scenario analyzed could change the results of a second wave of the survey.Social implicationsThis study contributes to improve the knowledge concerning the wine consumption habits of Italian young generations.Originality/valueThe paper manages to underline the different aspects of sustainability in the wine purchasing decisions by young consumers by focusing on the considered generations.

Evolution of Consumption Behavior of Silver Singles in Poland

Purpose: The purpose of the study is to analyze, based on the author’s own research, the relationship between lifestyle and selected consumer trends reflected in specific consumption behavior of silver singles. Design/methodology/approach: The analysis is based on a survey questionnaire administered between 1 February and 30 October 2019 in a sample of 2476 elderly people living alone in ten Polish cities of various populations and sizes. In accordance with the research assumptions, the sample included persons over 65 years of age who took independent consumption decisions in the market. This research method was chosen in view of the older age of respondents whose openness to new media often used in direct research is limited. Findings: The research shows that among the surveyed silver singles, men more often than women act in line with the cocooning and consumer ethnocentrism trends. It also reveals a strong correlation between cocooning and consumer ethnocentrism on the one hand and the level of education and monthly disposable income of silver singles on the other. As regards sustainable consumption, the proportion of silver singles who declared that they acted in line with that idea was much higher among women than men as well as among university graduates, those earning a monthly income of more than PLN 3000.00, and actively attending UTA courses. Research limitations/implications: Given the limited financial capacity, the study of consumer behavior matching the idea of cocooning, consumer ethnocentrism and sustainable consumption among silver singles was confined to a survey conducted in the biggest Polish cities. It was not possible to carry out research among single seniors living in rural areas. Following the conclusions made, they should not be treated as representative of the population of Polish silver singles. They only provide some insight into actual consumer behaviors of this consumer segment. Originality/value: This article is one of first publications in Poland that seek to provide some insight into consumption behaviors of Polish silver singles that are in line with the idea of selected alternative consumer trends.

Gender Representation in TV Advertising for Children: Children’s perceptions and advertising literacy

Children are becoming consumers at increasingly younger age and are more influential in consumption decisions within the family. Television still is one of the main ways they are exposed to advertising. Our study focuses on gender stereotypes on TV advertisements for children and combines a content analysis of advertisements and focus groups with children between 7 and 12 years old. Our findings show that, during a period of 3 months, about 75% of TV advertisements for children contain gender stereotypes. In addition, children are able to recognize such stereotypes, and in general do not identify or agree with the way each gender is portrayed. Finally, children display good levels of advertising literacy, as they are able to recognize the intentions of the brands in the commercials.

Construction of Machine Learning Model Based on Text Mining and Ranking of Meituan Merchants

In the Web 2.0 era, the problem of uneven quality and overload of online reviews is very serious, and the cognitive cost of obtaining valuable content from them is getting higher and higher. This paper explores an effective solution to address comment overload by means of information recommendation in order to improve the utilization of online information and information service quality. This paper proposes a review ranking recommendation scheme that focuses on the information quality of reviews and places more emphasis on satisfying users’ personal information need. The paper’s approach is used to extract and rank low-frequency keywords that appear only once in the comment set. The more useful the extracted phrases are, the more useful this review will be and the higher the usefulness votes will be, which can reflect the actual situation of this product more objectively and accurately and facilitate better consumption decisions for consumers. The experimental results show that users’ satisfaction with the perceived usefulness of the reviews is jointly influenced by the information quality of Meituan’s reviews and users’ individual information needs; the recommendation strategy achieves the organic integration of the two, and the evaluation results under three different recommendation modes show that compared with “interest recommendation” and “utility recommendation,” the satisfaction score of “fusion recommendation” is the highest

The impact of expected pensions on consumption: evidence from China

We study how pension participation and expected pension benefits affect working-age adults’ consumption based on a nationally representative dataset from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) during the period 2011–2018. We find that the consumption of working-age adults who participate in China's Residents' Basic Pension is 15.4% higher than that of non-participants. Furthermore, we find that if working-age adults' expected pension benefits increase by RMB 1, their consumption will increase by RMB 0.34. Overall, our findings suggest that pension expectations are critical to the consumption decisions of working-age adults and can, therefore, positively affect total domestic consumption.

Economic Stress and Body Weight During the COVID-19 Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused income loss for many households, disrupting food consumption patterns and contributing to weight loss for some, and weight gain for others. In this article, I build a dynamic theoretical model that explains those empirical facts. The novelty of this paper is to incorporate stress caused by a lower than ideal income (economic stress) in a model of optimal intertemporal food consumption decisions made by a rational eater. In this framework, economic stress causes disutility and individuals can cope by increasing high-calorie food consumption (stress eating). The limitation to this coping mechanism is that being overweight from excessive calorie intake also decreases utility. Thus, a decrease in income causes updates of the constraints faced by rational consumers of food, which are a budget constraint, a stress constraint and a weight gain constraint. As a consequence, the effect of a decrease in income on body weight reflects a competing income effect as well as two effects specific to economic stress, which are an intertemporal substitution effect and a stress eating effect. Those effects explain opposite weight patterns observed during the pandemic. JEL Classification: D11, D91, I12, I14

Mapping the Concept of Sustainable Consumption: An Analysis From the Adoption and Promotion of Pro-Environmental and Social Behaviors in University Students

The concept of sustainable consumption has been described in the literature from different perspectives, but few have focused on defining the consumer perspective and strategies to appropriate this knowledge and behaviors in the classroom, which becomes a major challenge in times of Covid 19 and confinement. This article proposes an approach to the concept by university students from the implementation of a pedagogical strategy, which involved the implementation of a virtual learning community and the evaluation of the understanding of this concept through the use of mind maps (pre and post). Through the mind maps, data were collected to evaluate the understanding of the concept, the analysis of semantic richness and systemic complexity. The results show the associations established by the students, proposing a categorization system arising from the data and the previous literature review. The study concludes that the students broadened their vision of sustainable consumption in terms of the actors involved, consumption decisions and the social and environmental dimensions of sustainability.

Gender as moderator of the influence of tourists’ risk perception on destination image and visit intentions

Purpose This paper aims to study the influence of gender on the theoretical and empirical relationships between tourists’ risk perceptions and both destination image and behavioural intentions. Design/methodology/approach An empirical study was carried out with potential tourists at home in Germany and the UK considering travelling to Spain, Egypt, Morocco, Brazil, Colombia and Indonesia. Data were analysed using structural equation modelling with multi-group analysis. Findings Results show that gender moderates the theoretical relationships between risk perception and both destination image and behavioural intentions. Risk perception is higher for women than for men and depends on the type of risks and the characteristics of the destination. Women are more likely than men to reduce their visit to a destination whenever there is an increase in their risk perceptions. However, the influence of risk perception on destination image is higher for men than for women. Thus, results prove there are significant gender differences in the theoretical relationships between risk perceptions and destination image and visiting intentions. Originality/value This paper provides new evidence on the gender differences in risk perceptions in tourism and their impact on destination image and visiting intentions, showing that whenever there are higher risks at a tourist destination women do change more than men their behavioural intentions. The results are useful for designing risk management and promotion policies at destinations that avoid the masculinisation bias, thereby considering the impact of gender differences on travel behaviour and consumption decisions.