How information affects consumers' attitudes toward and willingness to pay for cultured meat: evidence from Chinese urban consumers

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to assess the impact of providing information on Chinese consumers' attitudes toward and willingness to pay (WTP) for cultured meat, and to further focus on the heterogeneous effect of prior awareness.Design/methodology/approachThe data were collected by interviewing 1,004 consumers through a face-to-face survey conducted in 2019. Repeated measures ANOVA, ordinary least squares and maximum likelihood estimation were employed for data analysis.FindingsWhether consumers have heard of cultured meat before is not an important determinant for their attitude, but whether they know it well is. Consumers' attitudes and WTP all improved after the provision of information, but knowledgeable consumers' attitudes were less influenced by information than those without prior knowledge. Unlike attitude, prior awareness does not affect the effect of information on WTP.Originality/valueDespite extensive studies on the impact of information on the acceptance of cultured meat, few have analyzed the heterogeneous effect of prior awareness. In the research on prior awareness of cultured meat, firstly, no consistent conclusions about the effect of prior awareness on attitude; secondly, previous studies only considered heterogeneous effects of prior awareness on attitude toward cultured meat, while ignored WTP. This paper provides new insights in these areas. Further, this paper provides the first evidence on the heterogeneous impact of prior awareness in developing countries; most previous research has focused on consumers in developed countries.