Idealized Prototype

Idealized Prototype

Reviewed by Faisal Zaidi

The mental picture of a typical fruit or vegetable, which tends to lean toward beauty.

What it is

Hingston and Noseworthy predicted that personal experience decides how far the picture leans toward beauty and found that people with direct experience of growing produce saw low-beauty items as more prototypical, less disgusting and more desirable. It is drawn from work by Sean Hingston and Theodore Noseworthy (2020).

In effect

In the article on skipping ugly fruit, a shopper who has grown tomatoes holds a wider picture of a normal tomato.

What it does not say

The experience effect was reported in a small set of studies and describes a leaning in judgement. It does not say that growers like all produce or that other shoppers will never buy items with low beauty.

Sources

  1. Hingston, S. T., & Noseworthy, T. J. (2020). On the epidemic of food waste: Idealized prototypes and the aversion to misshapen fruits and vegetables. Food Quality and Preference, 86, 103999.