Discussing the Discussion

03/05/2017

Hello again! It's been a wonderful week of exciting decision making. After discussing with my parents, I can officially say that I will be attending Colorado School of Mines in the absolutely lovely town of Golden, Colorado this fall. I could not be happier with the way things turned out! I am going to be studying engineering alongside intelligent peers who are also passionate about STEM and using it to improve the global community, and I get to do it while living in my favorite state. :)

Anyways, back down to business. This week I finished editing my results section, and I have begun the process of writing my discussion section. Below are the 3 sources I used to learn more about how the discussion section looks for other researchers who conducted blind consumption studies.

Citations: 

1. Bakke, A., & Vickers, Z. (2007). “Consumer Liking of Refined and Whole Wheat Breads.” Journal Of Food Science, 72(7), S473-S480. (Bakke and Vickers conducted a blind consumption test to determine whether consumers preferred refined or wheat breads and whether these preferences aligned with their self identified preference between the two types of bread.)2. di Monaco, R., Cavella, S., Torrieri, E., & Masi, P. (2007). “Consumer Acceptability of Vegetable Soups.” Journal Of Sensory Studies, 22(1), 81-98. (di Monaco et al. conducted a blind consumption test to determine whether information regarding the ingredients, packaging, or the farming system involved in soup production affected consumer soup preference)3. Maison, D., Greenwald, A. G., & Bruin, R. H. (2004). “Predictive Validity of the Implicit
(Maison et al. conducted a blind consumption test to determine whether soft drink consumers could determine the difference between Coke and Pepsi and whether their ability to determine this difference was related to the strength of their preference for one beverage over the other).

Association Test in Studies of Brands, Consumer Attitudes, and Behavior.” Journal Of Consumer Psychology (Lawrence Erlbaum Associates), 14(4), 405-415.

Common Features of the Discussion Sections - Relating them to my Research:
All the discussion sections seem to serve one primary purpose - to explain potential reasons for why participant self-identified preferences either matched or did not match their blind consumption test preferences. For example, Bakke and Vickers found that more consumers who stated that they preferred refined bread often whole wheat bread products higher than or similarly to refined breads in the blind consumption test, and they reasoned that this misalignment was likely due to a common social stigma against the taste of whole wheat bread. Similarly, Maison et al., who found that consumers with strong preferences for either Coke or Pepsi were able to distinguish between the two beverages under blind consumption conditions much more often than consumers with a weak preference for either beverage, reasoned that those who indicated a strong preference were more likely to have sensory preferences, as opposed to merely emotional ones associated with the brands.

For my discussion, I will be articulating the potential alternative emotional responses to branding that account for for the large amount of misalignment between participant self-identified and blind consumption preferences, as my results showed no correlation between emotional connections to the natural product movement and the amount of misalignment between self-identified and blind consumption preferences. To do this, I will bring in some outside sources discussing other emotional factors associated with branding (i.e. emotions associated with high-end/low-end brands, ethical production measures taken by different companies, etc.) I will also discuss the reasoning behind consumers with exceptionally strong emotional connections to the natural product movement experiencing alignment between their self-identified and blind consumption preferences. Here, I will draw in Maison et al.'s findings and connect a consumer's strong preference with sensory distinctions.

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