The Effect Of Taste Experience On Consumer’s Attribution Of Corporate Social Responsibility

With the development of economic, the growth of company and the more attention of the public on corporate social responsibility, more and more companies begin to focus on and implement corporate social responsibility behaviors. What’s more, corporate social responsibility has a direct or indirect influence on the enterprise evaluation, brand loyalty, product purchase and the attitudes on product, the research on corporate social responsibility becomes more and more important. However, in the industrial level, there are two contrary research conclusions on corporate social responsibility---positive or negative evaluation on company’s corporate social responsibility. Therefore, in the present paper, we analyze the effect of taste experience (sweet or bitter) on consumers’attribution of corporate social behavior based on the theory of embodied cognition and affect misattribution.Specifically, study 1 show that sweet (vs. bitter) taste dispose consumers toward attributing companies’acts of social responsibility to altruism. Study 2 shows that sweet taste experience makes the participants believe the companies more friendly, in turn, rendered them more likely to attribute companies’acts of social responsibility to altruism. Study 3 shows that when the participants are conscious that their psychological comfort or discomfort is due to the changes in taste experience, they will discount the information value of taste and correct for the influence of taste experiences on their attribution of corporate social responsibility information. So, the effect of taste on the attribution of corporate social responsibility will disappear. The embodied theory and misattribution theory applied to the judgment of enterprise behavior, which expanded the perspective of corporate social responsibility research and guide the companies to carry out social responsibility information publicity effectively.