The Use of the Modified Protection Motivation Theory to Explore Adult Consumers’ Functional Foods Consumption Behavior

Functional foods are the fastest growing sector of the food market because of consumers’ growing interest in health and well-being. There were two objectives of this study. One was to examine the relationships among concepts in the Modified Protection Motivation Theory (MPMT): severity, vulnerability, response-efficacy, self-efficacy, intention, and behavior in regard to functional foods. The other objective was to identify functional food consumer profiles based on the MPMT concepts. A convenience sample of 465 adults from a Southwestern university completed the final online survey questionnaire during April and May, 2010. Results from structural equation modeling revealed that response-efficacy was a significant predictor of intention but not of behavior. Self-efficacy was the only construct that significantly predicted intention as well as behavior. Outcomes of cluster analysis produced two mutually exclusive consumer groups: Health-Oriented and Uninterested group. Results of discriminant analysis confirmed that MPMT constructs correctly classified 97.3% of participants into the two groups identified by the cluster analysis. Outcomes of the study will benefit the food industry (or food service industry) in terms of target marketing, new product development, and successful market performance.