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Development of the Food Attitude Behavior Openness Scale (FABOS)
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to develop a food attitude/behavior based instrument to determine the openness of hospitality management students. A 29-item, 5-point Likert style Food Attitude Behavior Openness Scale (FABOS) was developed and pilot-tested. One hundred and eleven students from four major Midwestern universities in the United States who were majoring in hospitality management or a related field participated in this study. Twenty-six items remained after inter-item correlations and face validity were completed. Factor analysis identified four factors: (a) Willingness to try, (b) Seeking novelty, (c) Enjoy novelty, and (d) Conditional openness. Correlations with the ABOS (Attitudinal and Behavioral Openness Scale) and TIA (Tolerance-Intolerance of Ambiguity) scales were carried out to determine validity of the FABOS instrument. Correlations were also carried out to determine if the number of cuisines liked was related to the scores in the FABOS, ABOS, and TIA scales. A 4-way ANCOVA determined the effect of age, gender, ethnicity, and income level on the FABOS, ABOS, and TIA scores that were adjusted for educational level as a covariate. A 4-way ANOVA that aimed at determining the effect of travel abroad, area where grew up, family size, and number of languages known on the FABOS, ABOS, and TIA scores was carried out. The Willingness to try, Seeking novelty, Enjoy novelty, and Conditional openness subscales of the FABOS instrument significantly positively correlated with the ABOS and TIA. An individual's food attitudes and behaviors could be used to predict the personality characteristic of openness. The effect of age, gender, ethnicity, income level, travel abroad, area where grew up, family size, and number of languages known were not significant with the Willingness to try, Seeking novelty, Enjoy novelty subscales and ABOS, TIA inventories with some exceptions. The number of cuisines could be related to the tolerance-intolerance of ambiguity but not necessarily openness. Further development of the FABOS instrument is required before the instrument could be used to determine openness.
Subject Area
Educational tests & measurements|Management|Quantitative psychology|Educational evaluation
Recommended Citation
Rajagopal, Lakshman, "Development of the Food Attitude Behavior Openness Scale (FABOS)" (2007). ETD collection for University of Nebraska-Lincoln. AAI3266781.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI3266781