THE ROLE OF EMOTIONS IN REDUCING FOOD WASTE

This study analyzes the role of emotions in the food waste reduction behavior of Brazilian consumers. Based on a survey with 235 respondents and employing PLS-SEM as the analysis technique, it was found that consumers who feel more guilty about waste have more favorable attitudes toward mitigating food disposal in domestic environments. Similarly, anticipated pride directly impacted attitudes toward reducing food waste. These emotions also had indirect effects on waste reduction intention and behavior. In this study, psychological distance moderated the intention-behavior relationship, demonstrating that consumers are more likely to engage in sustainable practices when they perceive waste as a problem close to them. This study offers insights into strategies that can be used to mitigate wasteful behaviors.

Keywords:
sustainable food consumption; reducing household food waste; psychological distance; food waste; sustainable consumption

Author	Emotion	Discoveries
Attiq et al. (2021)Attiq, S., Habib, M. D., Kaur, P., Hasni, M. J. S., & Dhir, A. (2021). Drivers of food waste reduction behaviour in the household context. Food Quality and Preference, 94, 104300. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodqual.2021.104300 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodqual.2021....	Guilt	Consumers with a higher level of anticipated guilt are more likely to avoid food waste.
Begho and Fadare (2023)Begho, T., & Fadare, O. (2023). Does household food waste prevention and reduction depend on bundled motivation and food management practices? Cleaner and Responsible Consumption. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.clrc.2023.100142 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.clrc.2023.1001...	Guilt and regret	Negative emotions arise from memories of past situations where waste occurred and positively impact the desire to reduce food disposal in the future.
Jabeen et al. (2023)Jabeen, F., Dhir, A., Islam, N., Talwar, S., & Papa, A. (2023). Emotions and food waste behavior: Do habit and facilitating conditions matter? Journal of Business Research, 155, 113356. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2022.113356 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2022.1...	Optimism, pride, guilt, and frustration	Negative emotions are positively associated with attitude and intentions. Positive emotions negatively impact attitude only.
Khalil et al. (2022)Khalil, M., Northey, G., Septianto, F., & Lang, B. (2022). Hopefully that’s not wasted! The role of hope for reducing food waste. Journal of Business Research, 147, 59-70. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2022.03.080 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2022.0...	Hope	Once people understand the gains they can have by not wasting, they experience a state of hope. This positive emotion leads to intentions and behaviors favorable to waste reduction.
Barbera et al. (2022)Barbera, F., Amato, M., Riverso, R., & Verneau, F. (2022). Social emotions and good provider norms in tackling household food waste: an extension of the theory of planned behavior. Sustainability, 14(15), 9681. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14159681 https://doi.org/10.3390/su14159681...	Anger, sadness, dislike, shame, and disappointment	Negative emotions increase intentions to reduce household food waste.
McCarthy and Liu (2017)McCarthy, B., & Liu, H. B. (2017). Food waste and the ‘green’consumer. Australasian Marketing Journal, 25(2), 126-132. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ausmj.2017.04.007 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ausmj.2017.04....	Guilt and anxiety	People who feel guilty and anxious about food waste make greater efforts not to discard food.
Russel et al. (2017)	Frustration, anxiety, optimism, pride, joy, and relaxation	Negative emotions were positively related with food waste intention and behavior. Positive emotions were not significantly related with intention and behavior.
Septianto et al. (2020)Septianto, F., Kemper, J. A., & Northey, G. (2020). Thanks, but no thanks: The influence of gratitude on consumer awareness of food waste. Journal of Cleaner Production, 258. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2020.120591 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2020.1...	Gratitude	Gratitude led to increased intentions to reduce food waste.
Soorani e Ahmadvand (2019)Soorani, F., & Ahmadvand, M. (2019). Determinants of consumers’ food management behavior: Applying and extending the theory of planned behavior. Waste Management, 98, 151-159. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wasman.2019.08.025 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wasman.2019.08...	Guilt	Guilt drives food consumption management and waste prevention.
Talwar et al. (2022)Talwar, S., Kaur, P., Kumar, S., Salo, J., & Dhir, A. (2022). The balancing act: how do moral norms and anticipated pride drive food waste/reduction behaviour? Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 66, 102901. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jretconser.2021.102901 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jretconser.202...	Anticipated pride	Anticipated pride positively impacts food waste avoidance intentions, but does not show any relation with leftover reuse routines and/or excessive food purchase reduction.

Construct	α	rho_A	CR	AVE
Guilt	0.835	0.845	0.924	0.858
Anticipated pride	0.954	0.959	0.970	0.915
Attitude	0.790	0.790	0.865	0.616
Intention	0.878	0.900	0.916	0.731
Waste reduction behavior	0.793	0.813	0.865	0.616

Construct	Fornell-Larcker					HTMT
Construct	(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)	(5)	(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)
Guilt (1)	0.926					-
Anticipated pride (2)	0.642	0.957				0.721	-
Attitude (3)	0.524	0.610	0.785			0.638	0.695	-
Intention (4)	0.610	0.819	0.742	0.855		0.701	0.888	0.873	-
Waste reduction behavior (5)	0.546	0.631	0.380	0.513	0.785	0.658	0.724	0.464	0.592

	VIF	β	S.E.	t-value	p-value	f²	R²
Direct effect
H1. Guilt → Attitude	1.700	0.225	0.049	4.593	0.001	0.050	0.402
H2. Anticipated pride → Attitude	1.700	0.466	0.058	7.988	0.001	0.213	0.402
H3. Attitude → Intention	1.000	0.742	0.034	21.789	0.001	0.900	0.551
H4. Intention → Waste reduction behavior	1.000	0.513	0.048	10.758	0.001	0.358	0.264
Indirect effect
Guilt → Attitude → Intention		0.167	0.038	4.423	0.001
Guilt → Attitude → Intention Waste reduction behavior		0.086	0.022	3.861	0.001
Anticipated pride → Attitude → Intention		0.346	0.054	6.418	0.001
Anticipated pride → Attitude Intention → Waste reduction behavior		0.177	0.034	5.248	0.001
Attitude → Intention → Waste reduction behavior		0.381	0.042	9.121	0.001

Relation	Close		Distant		PLS-MGA
Relation	β	p-value	β	p-value	Diff. β	p-value
Intention → Behavior x (Psychological distance)	0.713	0.001	0.430	0.001	0.283	0.001

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