Objectives: The study’s primary goal was to investigate the effect of goal priming
on implicit and explicit attitudes toward vegetarian food consumption and
food choice behavior within the context of dual-process models that describe
sustainable behavior.
Methods: A total of 128 participants were randomly assigned to either a goal
priming intervention group or a control group. After reading a short priming
text, all participants completed an explicit rating task, an Implicit Association
Test (IAT), and a simulated online supermarket task to assess actual food-related
choices.
Results: Participants in the intervention group exhibited significantly more
positive implicit attitudes toward vegetarian food compared to those in the
control group. Explicit attitudes toward vegetarian food were also significantly
more positive in the intervention group, although to a smaller extent. No
significant group differences were found in explicit attitudes toward meat-based
nutrition or in food choice behavior. However, mediation analysis revealed
a significant indirect effect of goal priming on behavior via implicit attitudes.
Exploratory analyses showed consistent gender differences across all outcome
variables, which attenuated the priming effects when included as a covariate.
Conclusion: Although the intervention did not result in direct behavioral
change, the findings support the potential of goal priming to influence
automatic affective and reflective processes that may precede the development
of sustainable behavior.