Sweet Choice:the Impact Of Taste Perception On Consumers' Intertemporal Choice

Intertemporal choice is a problem-solving process in which people make trade-offs between the outcomes of profits and losses at different points in the future.In daily life,consumers will encounter various kinds of intertemporal choice situations.For example,people prefer financial products with short investment cycle and low returns,or financial products with long cycle and high returns? Gradually,some scholars begin to explore the impact of consumer subjective factors on intertemporal choice,such as blood glucose level,hunger,sexual stimulation,etc.Meanwhile,consumers' taste perception of food plays an important role in life.It can not only help people establish specific products or brand associations,but also influence people's consumption decision-making behavior.Inspired by this,it prompted us to think about the relationship between taste perception and intertemporal choice.Based on the embodied cognition theory,this study innovatively uses taste perception as an influencing factor to explore the intertemporal choice preferences when consumers are stimulated by different taste perceptions.In addition,human self-control is a relatively stable personality trait that across time or context development,but there are great individual differences.Some studies have pointed out that during intertemporal choice,high self-control participants are more inclined to delay large amounts of future rewards,while low self-control participants are more likely to prefer small awards of the current period.This study uses trait self-control as a modulating variable to test whether consumers with different levels of self-control will have different preferences in the impact of taste perception on intertemporal choice.The study consisted mainly of two experiments:(1)A preliminary study of the main effect between taste perception(sweet vs mint vs sour)and consumerintertemporal choice;(2)With 3(sweet vs mint vs control group)× 2(high self-control vs low self-control)inter-subject trials to explore the regulatory role of trait self-control and further consolidate the conclusions of previous study.The empirical study found that:(1)Different taste perceptions will affect consumers' money intertemporal choice,sweet group participants prefer the current-revenue option,and mint group participants prefer delay-benefit option;(2)Trait self-control will affect intertemporal choice,high self-control participants preferthe delay-benefit option,while low self-control participants prefer the current-revenue option;(3)Trait self-control plays a regulatory role in the relationship between taste perception and intertemporal choice,high self-control subjects do not suffer from taste perception,so their discount rate is low,and they prefer the options of future-profitability;low self-control subjects are significantly affected by taste stimuli,and the results are stronger than the main effect.This research extends the research scope of taste sensory marketing to a certain extent,makes up for gaps between taste perception and decision-making behavior,and provides valuable reference suggestions for enterprises to conduct product or service marketing.