How emotions shape risks in buying food via a food rescue app?
基于风险即感受框架，通过三项研究考察不同风险维度如何影响消费者通过食物救援应用的购买意图和实际行为，以及积极和消极情绪如何调节风险与意图的关系。
Food waste remains a significant sustainability challenge in the hospitality industry in which food rescue apps aim to help with a scalable mechanism for redirecting surplus meals from restaurants to consumers. Despite growing uptake, broader adoption of these apps is constrained by consumers’ perceived risks and by an incomplete understanding of the affective processes that accompany risk evaluations. Addressing these gaps, this research draws on the risk-as-feelings framework to examine (1) how different risk dimensions relate to consumers’ intentions and actual purchasing behavior via food rescue apps, and (2) how positive and negative emotions shape the risk–intention relationship. We employ a multi-method, three-study design with consumers who have recent, real-world experience using food rescue apps. Study 1 uses a two-phase design over two months to assess how distinct risk dimensions contribute to the intention–behavior gap. Study 2 complements this through qualitative interviews that illuminate consumers’ emotional experiences when using food rescue apps. Study 3 tests the joint effects of perceived risks and emotions on intended food rescue behavior using quantitative data. By integrating risks and emotions, the study advances understanding of how risk perceptions translate into (or inhibit) app-based food rescue purchases. The findings offer actionable implications for platform providers and restaurant partners by identifying which risk dimensions most strongly deter engagement. • A multi-method study based on risk-as-feelings connecting risks and emotions. • Psychological and performance risks are the two most salient risk perceptions. • Highlights dual processing of risks and benefits despite focus on risks only. • Joy and contentment softens, but discontent amplifies, performance risk’s negative impact. • Feeling of surprise makes consumers become less sensitive to financial risk.