fresh produce. Lack of involvement in the purchase decision tends to
weaken the predictive ability of econometric models and severely im-
pairs the practical significance of empirical research recommendations.
The involvement in the purchase of fruit and vegetables seems to fluc-
tuate in response to many economic and environmental factors and the
availability of fresh, frozen, canned, or dehydrated substitutes.
Rational consumers demonstrate behavior by making a purchase. A
“rational” consumer’s selection reflects inner feeling or his or her atti-
tude toward an object. Learning about consumer attitudes to predict pur-
chase implies consistency between the nature of beliefs about a product
and actually observed behavior (Ajzen and Fishbein, 1977). Knowledge
of attitudes is useful in making decisions regarding an expansion of pro-
duction, entry into a new market, or a change of a technology to supply
produce with new attributes. The mutliattribute attitude model assumes
that behavior is consistent with attitudes.
Ajzen and Fishbein (1977) noted a lack of theoretical basis linking
attitudes and behavior. Consequently, investigators’ intuition guides em-
pirical research, which may be of limited theoretical value. Practition-
ers may gain some insights, but a study does not advance economic
theory. Although the multiattribute attitude model was applied in nu-
merous studies, there is a paucity of studies applying this approach to
food products and fresh produce in particular. This gap in the literature
can be attributed to the lack of data caused by difficulties in measuring
attitudes and behavior. The need for highly disaggregated data makes
them costly to collect.
Consumers treat a product as a combination of attributes, but believe
that some attributes are critical. These salient beliefs determine attitudes.
The strength of beliefs is critical in the multiattribute attitude modeling.
Algebraically, the attitude model is:
Attitude
ni 1iZii1, 2,... , n (12.2)where the ’s are weights attached to salient beliefs, and the strength of
a belief that a product has an attribute iis represented by z’s. The model
treats all attributes as equally important, assuming that a consumer makes
a proper assessment when asked to evaluate the product.
Because attitudes are inner feelings, they are measured implicitly
using various scales containing several possible answers. A consumer
indicates which of the offered options best reflects his or her attitude.
The selection of an option becomes less obvious over time because other