Abstract:

Background and justification:
This paper contains an in-class exercise made with graduate students in Psychology and currently studying their master’s degree in Work, Organizational, and Personnel Psychology (WOP-P) an Erasmus Mundus Master Program at University of Valéncia (Spain). The exercise is proposed for the subject Marketing. Marketing is a Free Content Course subject which does not correspond to the students’ curricula (based on Psychology). However, areas of cross-fertilization between psychology and Marketing are explored: notably, consumer behavior, where students’ knowledge on factors affecting consumer behavior and techniques of psychometry help in understanding the way people act in a marketplace.

Method:
As part of the final assessment of the subject Marketing (Free Content Course), there is Workshop on Consumer Behavior measurement (20%). In course 2020-21, students were asked to critically discuss a contemporary Consumer Behavior: Locavorism, Locavorism is a consumer ideology (or set of normative belies shared among a group) which makes consumers (as locals and/or tourists) to prefer to buying local products (Reich, Beck & Price, 2018)
Being familiar with structural models from their psychometrics background, students should propose a model to measure a locavorism behavior.

More precisely, this were the steps followed in the exercise:
1. First, students have to read individually the 3 suggested papers: two of them on Value (i.e. Holbrook, 1999; Gallarza et al. 2011) and the third on Locavorism (Reich, Beck & Price, 2018)
2. Second, the instructor makes a brief oral explanation of the background on Consumer Value as a fretful construct in Consumer Behavior. The students listen actively, make questions, and take notes.
3. Discuss if Holbrook's (1999) 2*2*2 scheme fits a locavorism behaviour? what are the Psychological factors or other variables affecting Value the V-S-L chain (Intervariable perspective). in oral discussion in class with the instructor, students agreed upon a potential causal model to explain Locavorism as a a consumer behaviour within the framework of Value research (Inter-Intra variable perspectives) with Antecedents, Mediators and Moderators.

The students added significant variables derived from Psychology that can Influence locavorism behaviour as moderators of the chain Value(s)-Satisfaction-Loyalty: Ethnocentrism, Openness to Experience, Extraversion, Ethical Orientation. Locavorism dimensions were considered antecedents as Value(s) dimensions:
a) Lionization: a core belief is that local (vs. non-local) foods possess superior taste and quality;
b) Opposition: locavores are against wholly globalized brands, very strongly associated with fast food industry.
c) Communalization: They also favoured local communities and cooperatives of production and distribution.

References:
[1] Holbrook, M. B. (1999). Consumer value: A framework for analysis and research. London, UK: Routledge.
[2] Reich, B. J., Beck, J. T., & Price, J. (2018). Food as ideology: Measurement and validation of locavorism. Journal of Consumer Research, 45(4), 849-868.

Keywords:

In-class exercise, Consumer behaviour, Locavorism, Structural Model.