Similarities and differences in affective and cognitive origins of food likings and dislikes.

In a field study, 355 French-Canadian adults (Caucasians; 119 men, 236 women; average age of 40) freely stated the food item they liked and disliked the most, the reasons for their attitude and the context of their last consumption of these two food items. Content analysis revealed that the origins of food likes and dislikes are at the same time very similar and very different. They are similar in terms of the overwhelming influence of affective factors, in particular sensory experience, in the formation of both positive and negative attitudes toward food. Similarity between origins of food likes and dislikes in the same subjects is higher when they are from affective sources than when they are from cognitive sources. Food likes and dislikes are also similar in terms of the high salience of the social dimension in subjects' memories of consumption contexts. Results also show that food likes and dislikes also differ in many ways. Subjects can more easily elicit attitude bases and consumption contexts for food likes than they do for food dislikes. Beside taste as their common and most frequent base, results show that dislikes originate from more specific (e.g. texture, smell, appearance) and more intense sensory experiences than likes. Further, physiological consequences that contribute to food likes and dislikes are not the same: likes originate from positive nutritional value whereas dislikes follow from negative physiological responses, in particular nausea. Also, specific factors contribute uniquely to likes and dislikes. Functional aspects (e.g. flexibility, preparation) were the second most important reasons for food likes while having almost no influence on dislikes. In contrast, food symbolism was the third most important reason for food dislikes with almost no effect on food likes.