Small or Large? How Film Types Influence Customer’s Purchase of Food Sizes at the Movies？

EasyChair Preprint 6757

Abstract

To better understand consumers' food purchasing behavior at the movie theaters, we investigate how the expected emotional valence of a movie (i.e., happy and sad movies) affects people's food purchasing decisions. While prior research has examined the incidental effect of emotions on food consumption during movie watching, little has been studied about how the type of movie to be watched influences consumers’ purchasing patterns prior to watching the movie. Our studies suggest that expecting to see a sad movie can influence the size of the food or drink people buy, especially for unhealthy foods. Anticipation of watching a sad movie leads to purchasing smaller foods to possibly limit their future consumption during the movie-watching experience, especially among those with lower self-control. Our findings present implications for theater companies and consumers alike, given that purchase of food and drinks almost always occurs prior to watching the movie.

Keyphrases: affective forecasting, emotion, food consumption, hypothetical movie theater experience, movie theater, person self control trait, sad movie, self-control, unhealthy food

@booklet{EasyChair:6757,
  author    = {Xinyu Cui and Travis Tae Oh},
  title     = {Small or Large? How Film Types Influence Customer’s Purchase of Food Sizes at the Movies？},
  howpublished = {EasyChair Preprint 6757},
  year      = {EasyChair, 2021}}