Understanding consumers' perceptions of aquaculture and its products in Gran Canaria island: does the influence of positive or negative wording matter?

Abstract

Many investigations have looked to understand consumers' perceptions of aquaculture and its products, with Likert scales being the most popular instrument employed. In some of them, negatively and positively worded survey items are mixed looking to reduce potential acquiescence bias. Nevertheless, several studies found that this solution could be problematic because reverse recoded negatively worded statements might not exactly measure the same as their positively worded counterparts. This study aims to examine the impact of positive and negative wording on surveys that analyze the consumers' perceptions of aquaculture and its products. The results revealed that if the goal is to understand how well consumers perceive aquaculture and its products, using negative statements on Likert scale instruments is not appropriate because it increases respondents' negative perception, and the information appears to be less reliable and with more variability than that obtained with positively worded statements. In addition, our study reveals interesting insights on how to improve consumers' perceptions of aquaculture and its products for the segment of the population formed by young adults and highly educated residents.