Journal article
Culture-based metaphorical temperature affects food choices: Chinese consumers choose foods based on their hot-cold nature
- Abstract:
- The effects of both food temperature and ambient temperature have recently been studied in the context of food marketing and decision-making. However, despite the dominant role of culture-based metaphorical temperature, a characteristic rooted in traditional food culture, in shaping food preferences in many regions (e.g., Southeast Asia), its impact has been overlooked in previous research. Across three studies, this research investigated the effect of metaphorical food temperature on people's food choices. The results revealed that participants chose hot-natured (vs. cold-natured) foods when imagining themselves as experiencing ‘bodily cold’ (vs. ‘bodily hot’; Study 1), as these foods were perceived to be healthier under those conditions (Studies 2 and 3). These findings highlight the influence of culture-based metaphorical temperature on how people perceive the nutritional properties of foods.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
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(Preview, Version of record, pdf, 1.2MB, Terms of use)
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- Publisher copy:
- 10.1038/s41538-026-00905-5
Authors
+ Science and Technology Development Fund
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- Funder identifier:
- https://ror.org/05vna4324
- Grant:
- 0062/2024/R1B2
+ National Office of Philosophy and Social Sciences
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- Funder identifier:
- https://ror.org/04m0ms912
- Grant:
- 24BGL252
+ Macau University of Science and Technology
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- Funder identifier:
- https://ror.org/03jqs2n27
- Publisher:
- Springer Nature
- Journal:
- npj Science of Food More from this journal
- Volume:
- 10
- Issue:
- 1
- Article number:
- 249
- Place of publication:
- England
- Publication date:
- 2026-05-23
- Acceptance date:
- 2026-05-19
- DOI:
- EISSN:
-
2396-8370
- Pmid:
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42177176
- Language:
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English
- Pubs id:
-
2423860
- Local pid:
-
pubs:2423860
- Source identifiers:
-
W7162200165
- Deposit date:
-
2026-08-03
- ARK identifier:
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- Yu et al.
- Copyright date:
- 2026
- Rights statement:
- © The Author(s) 2026. Open Access. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons AttributionNonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, which permits any non-commercial use, sharing, distribution and reproduction in anymedium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if you modified the licensed material. You do not have permission under this licence to share adapted material derivedfrom this article or parts of it. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.
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