Valores, atitudes ambientais e a prática de consumo de alimentos naturais.

Abstract

Values and attitudes are aspects present in a food choice and may help in the comprehension of consumers concerning their own food. The study of values and attitudes may offer interventions which can allow behavioral changes outlining the importance of such values and attitudes for the promotion of the environmentally conscious consumption. Thus, the aim of this thesis is to propose an explanatory model that shows the forms of interference of individual values and environmental attitudes on the consumption of natural foods. The research was based on two studies, the first is on an explanatory research, of qualitative nature, with the participation of professors from public and private institutions, consumers of natural foods, having as a tool for research half structured interviews. After the data collection, those interviews were transcribed and analyzed from the content analyses. The second study of quantitative nature, had consumers of natural foods and users of internet as target group. The version of the questionnaire was online (on internet), elaborated on the lime platform survey (self-report measures) in which consumers received an e-mail, being invited to take part in the study, providing a link that redirected them to a web page where the instructions were, explicit measures had been used: The Questionnaire of Basic Values (QVB), the Environmental Attitudes Inventory and the scale for evaluating the consumer of natural foods, as well as explicit measures. According to the results, it has been found that the consumption of natural foods is influenced by values and attitudes, as well as the social significance of the consumption, which may undergo interventions that allow behavioral changes, outlining the importance of values and attitudes for the promotion of an environmentally conscious consumption. An explanatory model of natural food consumption has been created, through which it was possible to elucidate the consumption by environmental values and attitudes. This way, it could verify the pertinence of using an explanation based on such values presenting itself as an explainer of the variables related to environmental behaviors, having the individual values as a variable predictor of environmental attitudes, as well as for the natural food consumption.