TY - JOUR A1 - Buttlar, Benjamin A1 - Löwenstein, Lars A1 - Geske, Marie-Sophie A1 - Ahlmer, Heike A1 - Walther, Eva T1 - Love food, hate waste? Ambivalence towards food fosters people’s willingness to waste food T2 - Sustainability N2 - Food waste is the origin of major social and environmental issues. In industrial societies, domestic households are the biggest contributors to this problem. But why do people waste food although they buy and value it? Answering this question is mandatory to design effective interventions against food waste. So far, however, many interventions have not been based on theoretical knowledge. Integrating food waste literature and ambivalence research, we propose that domestic food waste can be understood via the concept of ambivalence—the simultaneous presence of positive and negative associations towards the same attitude object. In support of this notion, we demonstrated in three pre-registered experiments that people experienced ambivalence towards non-perishable food products with expired best before dates. The experience of ambivalence was in turn associated with an increased willingness to waste food. However, two informational interventions aiming to prevent people from experiencing ambivalence did not work as intended (Experiment 3). We hope that the outlined conceptualization inspires theory-driven research on why and when people dispose of food and on how to design effective interventions. KW - domestic food waste KW - ambivalence KW - intervention KW - date labeling KW - best before KW - Lebensmittel KW - Haushalt KW - Verschwendung KW - Ambivalenz KW - Empfindung KW - Mindesthaltbarkeitsdatum Y1 - 2021 UR - https://ubt.opus.hbz-nrw.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/1809 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:hbz:385-1-18094 VL - 2021 IS - Band 13, Heft 7 PB - MDPI CY - Basel ER -