Unravelling consumer acceptance of local food: Physical versus social distance and the important role of social identification

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Introduction
Our climate is changing and this negatively impacts many areas that influence human society, including biodiversity redistribution (Pecl et al., 2017), flooding (Blöschl et al., 2020), and loss of agricultural productivity (Stevanović et al., 2016).The global food system plays a large role in climate change (Aleksandrowicz, Green, Joy, Smith, & Haines, 2016;Ritchie, Reay, & Higgins, 2018).Thus, consumers' diets need to majorly shift to reduce their environmental footprint (Aleksandrowicz et al., 2016).A way to achieve this is by including more locally grown foods in our diets (Coelho et al., 2018).Perceptions of what a local product is can vary across consumers (e.g., individual perceptions) and countries (e.g., country size).We define a product as local when it is produced in the consumers' own region or province.Note that there are reservations about entirely relying on seasonal and local foods while not utilizing global food chains anymore (Brunori et al., 2016).Apart from this being viewed as romantic and unrealistic (Micheelsen et al., 2013), the environmental and health benefits of solely relying on local food chains are also not entirely clear (Edwards-Jones, 2010).Nonetheless, a future-proof sustainable food system engages a mix between local and global food chains (Brunori et al., 2016), and local foods can thus be regarded as an important part of coherent sustainability strategies.In order to speed up this trend it is relevant that consumers are willing to accept and buy these local products.
Buying local food is becoming more popular in Western countries where the distance between place of production and place of consumption is becoming larger and more nontransparent (Feldmann & Hamm, 2015).Additionally, a more recent study found that during the COVID-19 pandemic the consumption of local food has increased (Onwezen & Galama, 2021).Policymakers are promoting local food as part of sustainability strategies.For example, the European Union supported local food consumption via 'School Fruit Schemes' and provided funds for the development of local food chains (European Parliament, 2016).Nevertheless, there is still room to increase consumer purchases of local food, as there is a gap between consumers' positive attitudes towards local foods and their behaviors.Specifically, consumers show more interest in local food, though consumer acceptance in terms of local foods purchased remains low (Feldmann & Hamm, 2015).Therefore, it is important to investigate how consumer acceptance of locally grown food can be stimulated.
We aim to use a vested psychological theory, the construal level theory (Trope & Liberman, 2010), to disentangle how the acceptance of local foods by consumers can be increased.The construal level theory (Trope & Liberman, 2010) states that an object can be perceived as psychologically distant by consumers; the further away something is from the self, the more abstract a construal becomes.The construal level theory has been shown relevant in many different contexts (e.g., Dhar & Kim, 2007;Wiesenfeld et al., 2017), and we aim to explore whether we can also use this theory to further understand what makes local foods more acceptable to consumers.The construal level theory includes various dimensions, though two seem especially relevant for local foods: physical distance and social distance.First, regarding physical distance, it is found that when it is communicated to consumers that a food product is produced physically close by (i.e., local) this can diminish the physical gap between the food producer and the consumer (Feldmann & Hamm, 2015) and increase purchase intentions (Merle et al., 2016).We propose that this mechanism can be explained by a decrease in experienced distance between the consumer and the food producers.Second, social distance refers to an experienced social connection, which can be weak or strong, such as a friend versus a stranger (Trope & Liberman, 2010).In a similar manner as physical distance, we propose that less social distance between consumers and food producers (e.g., by communicating personal details about the producer) can also increase consumers' food product acceptance.
Moreover, we aim to explore why decreasing the distance between the food producer and the consumer is effective.We propose that it is effective because decreased distance increases the level of identification an individual has with the food producer.In line with the social identity theory and the social categorization theory (Tajfel & Turner, 1979;Turner et al., 1987), consumers respond more favorably to identity-congruent behaviors and evaluate these products more positively (Reed II et al., 2012).Meaning that decreasing the physical and social distance towards the food producer can increase the sense that a food producer is perceived as more as part of an ingroup (identity-congruent), which strengthens the level of social identification with the food producer.In the end, these stronger feelings of identification with a certain group can affect consumers' food choices (e.g.Merle et al., 2016;Åstrøm & Rise, 2001).

Current study
This study aims to explore how the acceptance of local food products can be increased and which underlying mechanism explains the acceptance of local food products.The insights of the current study can be helpful for practitioners to market local products in such a way that consumers are more willing to buy these products.We hypothesize that communicating on a food product about the food producer coming from an area nearby (lower physical distance) and about a food producer's personal details (e.g.name of a farmer; lower social distance) can increase the acceptance of the food product.To assure which mechanism is especially relevant we aim to activate them independent from each other.In addition, we included questions regarding participants' current living conditions (physically or socially close by a farmer) which allows the possibility to explore whether these mechanisms also occur in reallife.
Furthermore, this study contributes to the literature by also investigating whether identifying with the food producers explains the effect of psychological distance (physical and social distance) on the acceptance of food products.We hypothesize that a reduced physical and social distance leads to more identification with the food producers and, in turn, to more acceptance of local food products.

Participants and data availability
The study entailed an online survey among Dutch participants.Participants were recruited through a professional market research company (MSI-ACI Europe BV). 1 Recruitment was based on gender, age, education, and region to represent a cross-section of the Dutch population.In total, 825 participants were included in the study, which were randomly divided into four conditions of our experimental design (see 2.2).In Table 1 the number of participants in every condition is shown with gender and age demographics.The total sample comprised 51.9% females and the average age was 53 (SD = 15.5) years ranging from 18 to 83 years (excluding two participants who did not reveal their age).
Informed consent was obtained from the participants included in the study.The study was approved by the Social Sciences Ethical Committee (SEC) of Wageningen University and Research and complies with the Netherlands Code of Conduct for Research Integrity.The lead author has availability to all data and syntax codes.The data is available upon request, though for the use of the data a formal data sharing agreement is required including the fact that data cannot be used for commercial purposes.

Experimental design and manipulation
A serial multiple mediation model was used to test our hypothesis.Participants were randomly allocated to one of the four conditions (1. high physical and social distance, 2. high physical distance and low social distance, 3. low physical distance and high social distance, 4. low physical and social distance).To be able to generalize the findings more, two products (and corresponding sectors) were included.Participants were randomly assigned to either an arable farm and potatoes (i.e., farms that grow crops other than fruit and vegetables) or a horticultural farm and strawberries (i.e., farms that grow fruit and vegetables).In the analyses we averaged the scores across these two sectors and foods within each condition.The food products were chosen because (1) they are typical Dutch products and therefore recognizable for our participants, and (2) they are products that are produced in the Netherlands and therefore it is believable when we state that these are local products.
The manipulation of physical and social distance was incorporated in the following text that participants read at the start of the study: "For the following part we want to ask you to imagine that you are doing groceries in the supermarket.In the supermarket you see [a product: either potatoes or strawberries] [physical distance low: that are produced in the province where you live; physical distance high: that are produced in a 1 This experiment was incorporated in the second wave of a larger survey.
The first wave included 3,200 participants and the second wave included 2,080 participants.In the second wave, 55 participants were excluded due to either little variation in responses, responses under 3 min or illogical combinations of answers.The larger survey also looked at other agricultural sectors, however for the current paper we focus on the arable and the horticultural sector and these two sectors had 825 participants.

Measures
The online survey included an experiment and a real-life assessment.The measures we used for these two parts are described below.

Experiment
The manipulation check came directly after the manipulation and participants were asked to indicate whether the text in the manipulation was about a farm within their province, and whether the text included background information about the farmer.Both items were measured on a 7-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (completely disagree) to 7 (completely agree).
Identification with the food producer (α = 0.950) was measured with 3 items (e.g."I feel solidarity with the horticultural farmer") on a 7-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (completely disagree) to 7 (completely agree), and was based on Leach et al. (2008).Average scores were calculated for the analyses.
To measure acceptance of a food product, two forms of consumer acceptance were being used: (1) the attitude towards an agricultural sector, and (2) the intention to buy a food product.Including two forms of acceptance in our study, one regarding the agricultural sector and one regarding the food product, results in a more complete picture of the effects of our manipulation, as we can explore whether psychological distance affects either attitudes or intentions or both, and whether these effects occur through identification.Attitude towards an agricultural sector (α = 0.974) was based on a combination of three attitude related scales, namely general (Ajzen, 1991;Onwezen et al., 2014), cognitive, and affective attitude (Crites et al., 1994), and was measured with 9 items on a 7-point bipolar continuum.This way, a comprehensive measurement of attitudes towards a farm was mapped that included both cognitive considerations and affective influences.Exploratory factor analysis using principle components with Promax rotation revealed one factor that accounted for 82.8% of the total variance.Examples of items are "I think this horticultural farm is …: negative/positive (general item), harmful/beneficial (cognitive item), unattractive/attractive (affective item)".Average scores were calculated for the analyses.
Intention to buy the product in the supermarket (α = 0.952) was measured with three items (e.g."I would like to buy these strawberries from this horticultural farm") using a 7-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (completely disagree) to 7 (completely agree), which was based on Ajzen (1991).Average scores were calculated for the analyses.

Real-life assessment
In addition to attitudes and intentions which are already mentioned above, participants were asked to indicate whether a farmer (or multiple farmers) is (are) located in their neighborhood (1 = "yes", 2 = "no", 3 = "I do not know"), and whether they personally know a farmer (or multiple farmers) (1 = "yes", 2 = "no", 3 = "I do not know") to assess their personal physical and social distance to farmers.

Manipulation check
Results from a univariate factorial analysis of variance (ANOVA) shows that the manipulations worked as expected.Participants in the low physical distance condition agreed more with the statement that the text was about a farm within their province (M = 5.74, SD = 1.46), compared to the participants in the high physical distance condition (M = 2.55, SD = 1.94,F(1,821) = 710.693,p < 0.001, η 2 = 0.464).
Consistently, participants in the low social distance condition agreed more with the statement that the text included social information of the farmer (M = 5.77, SD = 1.36), compared to the participants who were in the high social distance condition (M = 3.51, SD = 1.97,F(1,821) = 365.804,p < 0.001, η 2 = 0.308).

Attitude towards the agricultural sector
A univariate factorial analysis of variance (ANOVA) was performed to explore the effect of social and physical distance on the attitude towards the agricultural sector.In the analysis, social distance, physical distance, and the interaction term (social distance * physical distance) were entered as independent variables with the attitude towards the agricultural sector as dependent variable.Results indicate that physical distance significantly influences the attitude towards the agricultural sector (F(1,821) = 5.210, p = 0.023, η 2 = 0.006).Participants who read in the message that the farm was nearby (low physical distance) had a significantly more positive attitude towards the agricultural sector (M = 5.56, SD = 1.06) than participants who read that the farm was from far away (high physical distance; M = 5.39, SD = 1.02).This pattern was not found for social distance (F(1,821) = 0.783, p = 0.376, η 2 = 0.001), meaning that there was no difference in attitude towards the agricultural sector for participants who got more social information about the farmers' family life (low social distance; M = 5.51, SD = 1.06) than for participants who got less social information about the farmers' family life (high social distance; M = 5.44, SD = 1.02).There was also no significant interaction-effect (F(1,821) = 0.445, p = 0.505, η 2 = 0.001).
The adjusted R 2 of the analysis was 0.004.

Intention to buy a product in the supermarket
A second univariate factorial ANOVA was performed with the same independent variables, but this time the intention to buy a food product was entered as the dependent variable.Results indicate that physical distance significantly influences the intention to buy a food product in the supermarket (F(1,821) = 6.177, p = 0.013, η 2 = 0.007).Participants who read in the message that the product was produced on a farm nearby (low physical distance) had a significantly higher intention to buy the product in a supermarket (M = 5.28, SD = 1.37) than participants who read that the product was produced far away (high physical distance; M = 5.05, SD = 1.34).There was no main effect of social distance on intention to buy a product (F(1,821) = 1.468, p = 0.226, η 2 = 0.002, M (SD) low = 5.10 (1.44), M (SD) high = 5.22 (1.29) and there was also no significant interaction-effect (F(1,821) = 0.107, p = 0.743, η 2 < 0.000).The adjusted R 2 of the analysis was 0.006.

Identification with the food producer
A third univariate factorial ANOVA was performed with the same independent variables, but this time the identification with the food producer was entered as the dependent variable.Results indicate that physical distance significantly influences the identification with the food producer (F(1,821) = 27.482,p < 0.000, η 2 = 0.032).Participants who read in the message that the product was produced on a farm nearby (low physical distance) had a significantly higher identification with the food producer (M = 4.61, SD = 1.54) than participants who read that the product was produced far away (high physical distance; M = 4.05, SD = 1.51).There was no main effect of social distance on intention to buy a product (F(1,821) = 2.192, p = 0.139, η 2 = 0.003, M (SD) low = 4.41 (1.5), M (SD) high = 4.26 (1.59) and there was also no significant interaction-effect (F(1,821) = 0.004, p = 0.950, η 2 < 0.000).The adjusted R 2 of the analysis was 0.031.
See Table 2 for an overview of the main effects.

Serial multiple mediation model
A serial multiple mediation model was used (SPSS PROCESS v3.4; model 6; 5.000 bootstrapping samples with 95% CI; Hayes, 2012;Hayes, 2018) to analyze whether the effect of physical distance on the intention to buy a product is mediated by feelings of identification with the food producer and the attitude towards the agricultural sector in a serial manner.Intention to buy a product was used as the dependent variable (Y), physical distance (high, low) as the independent variable (X), identification with the food producer as the first mediator (M1) and attitude towards the agricultural sector as the second mediator (M2).See Fig. 1 for an overview of the model and the effects.
Results reveal a significant serial multiple mediation effect of physical distance on intention to buy a product by identification and attitude (a 1 d 21 b 2 = 0.123, 95%CI [0.07, 0.18]).Participants who read that the product was produced on a farm nearby, experienced more feelings of identification with the food producer than participants who read that the product was produced on a farm far away (a 1 = 0.558, t(823) = 5.248, p < 0.001); in turn, participants who experienced stronger feelings of identification had a more positive attitude towards the agricultural sector (d 21 = 0.375, t(822) = 18.87, p < 0.001); and finally, those who experienced a more positive attitude towards the agricultural sector had a higher intention to buy the food product in the supermarket (b 2 = 0.587, t(821) = 14.777, p < 001).The direct effect of physical distance on intention disappears (c' = − 0.026, t(821) = − 0.366, p = 0.715), while the total effect of the model is significant (c = 0.234, t(821) = 2.475, p = 0.014).
Moreover, in this model the effect of physical distance on attitude disappears (a 2 = − 0.041, t(822) = − 0.671, p = 0.502) and identification shows a direct significant association with the intention to buy the food product (b 1 = 0.289, t(821) = 10.665,p < 001).

Farmer in neighborhood
A univariate analysis of variance (ANOVA) was performed to explore the effect of having a farmer (or more farmers) living in the neighborhood on the attitude towards the agricultural sector and the intention to buy products from that particular sector.Respondents could answer yes, no or 'do not know'.Results indicate that perceived physical distance significantly influences the attitude towards the agricultural sector (F (2,824) = 9.555, p < 0.001, η 2 = 0.023).Tukey post-hoc tests reveal that participants who state that a farmer is living in their neighborhood had a significantly more positive attitude towards the agricultural sector (M = 5.58, SD = 1.04,N = 520) than participants who stated no farmer was living in their neighborhood (M = 5.38, SD = 1.04,N = 185), or participants that do not know (M = 5.15, SD = 0.99, N = 120).There was no significant difference between participants that do not have a farmer in their neighborhood or state to not know.
A similar pattern was shown for buying intentions.The ANOVA indicates that perceived physical distance significantly influences the intention (F(2,824) = 12.603, p < 0.001, η 2 = 0.030).Tukey post-hoc tests reveal that participants who state that a farmer is living in their neighborhood had a significantly higher intention to buy products from the specific agricultural sector (M = 5.34, SD = 1.30,N = 520) than participants who stated no farmer was living in their neighborhood (M = 4.89, SD = 1.44,N = 185), or participants who do not know (M = 4.81, SD = 1.37,N = 120).There was no significant difference between participants that do not have a farmer in their neighborhood or state to not know.

Familiar with a farmer
Similar analyses were performed for the question whether respondents were familiar with a farmer (answering categories: yes, no, do not know).An ANOVA indicates that personally knowing a farmer significantly influences the attitude towards the agricultural sector (F (2,824) = 4.804, p = 0.008, η 2 = 0.012).Tukey post-hoc tests reveal that participants who state to know a farmer had a significantly more positive attitude towards the agricultural sector (M = 5.63, SD = 1.06,N = Note.The letters show the significant differences between low and high physical distance and between low and high social distance.275) than participants who did not know a farmer (M = 5.40, SD = 1.02,N = 542).There were no differences with the participants that stated not to know (M = 5.10, SD = 1.17,N = 8), which was also a rather small part of the sample.A similar pattern was shown for buying intentions.The ANOVA indicates that perceived social distance significantly influences the intention towards the agricultural sector (F(2, 824) = 4.512, p = 0.011, η 2 = 0.011).Tukey post-hoc tests reveal that participants who state to know a farmer had a significantly higher intention to buy products (M = 5.36, SD = 1.26,N = 275) than participants who did not know a farmer (M = 5.07, SD = 1.41,N = 542).There were no differences with the participants that stated 'I do not know' (M = 4.88, SD = 0.91, N = 8), which was also a rather small part of the sample.
These findings indicate that the acceptance of local food products cannot only be triggered by food product communication, but can also be the result of connections consumers already experience (physically or socially) in real-life.Feeling more connected to farmers results in increased acceptance of both the producer and the product.Moreover, these findings hint that both decreased physical and social distance can increase attitudes and intention when they result in feelings of connectedness with the producer.

Discussion
The current study explored how the acceptance of local foods can be increased using the psychological lens of construal level theory and whether this can be explained by identification with the food producer.Insights gained from this study can support practices on how information about food producers on food products can best be communicated to increase consumer acceptance of local food products.As noted in the introduction, the transition towards more local foods should be perceived as one part of the complete food system, which should include both local and global foods (Brunori et al., 2016).The results show that decreasing the physical distance, but not the social distance, between a consumer and a food producer results in higher levels of social identification with the food producer and, in turn, higher levels of consumer acceptance of the food product.Moreover, the results from the real-life assessment reveal that both actually living close to a farmer and personally knowing a farmer are associated with the acceptance of local food products.Taken together these results indicate the relevance of decreased distance, and reveal that perceived connectedness (identification) with the farmer forms a key ingredient for consumer acceptance.

Physical distance, but not social distance, affects acceptance of food products
The current study partly confirms our hypothesis that decreased distance increases consumer acceptance.The results reveal that decreasing the physical distance between a consumer and a food producer, but not the social distance, increases both measures of acceptance that we included in our study, namely the attitude towards an agricultural sector and the intention to buy a food product from that sector.The positive effect of a decreased physical distance on attitude and buying intentions fits a recent systemic literature review on this topic.The review states that: "origin information on food products is generally valued by consumers and that it generally influences their choices even more than, for example, environmental or organic labelling" (Thøgersen, 2023, p. 19).Moreover, a recent meta-regression analysis related to this topic, showed a positive effect of country-of-origin labelling on consumers' willingness to pay (Yeh & Hirsch, 2023).There is less compelling evidence in the current literature for the effectiveness of social distance, which is in line with our results (i.e., no effect of social distance on acceptance).Decreasing social distance does seem to be important for consumers, however, other attributes are more important.For instance a study by Conner et al. (2009) found that although farmers' market shoppers (in Michigan) do find it important to have a certain relationship with a farmer, knowing the farmer was found to be the least important attribute for the value of locally grown food.Another study showed that more value was placed on the dimensions location and freshness than on the dimension farmer ownership (Darby et al., 2008).
An alternative explanation for only finding effects for physical distance may be found in our manipulations of the physical and social distance and in the underlying mechanism of social identification.Physical distance was manipulated by varying whether a product was produced in a participant's province or in a different province.In contrast, social distance was manipulated by varying whether personal details about the producer's family life was given or not, while not necessarily giving information that was more closely related to participants' own personal situation.These findings imply that two different manipulations that decrease the distance between a consumer and a food producer do not necessarily show similar effects, as the physical distance manipulation may have succeeded in making the food product information more personally relevant while the social distance manipulation did not (Griffioen et al., 2016).This is underscored by the findings of our assessment in real-life that shows that both a decreased physical and social distance can be effective when respondents personally experience the decreased distance.Although the real-life assessment was cross-sectional and these implications need to be tested by future research, we believe they might provide interesting guidance that it is especially about finding ways to increase feelings of connection between the producer and the consumer.
Our findings contribute to the literature by revealing that decreasing distance by connecting with a consumer's personal situation, as was done with the physical distance manipulation, results in higher acceptance of food products, while decreasing distance with only social information about a producer does not.Future research should further test this reasoning and examine if low distance messages are more effective when it is personally relevant.A low social distance message that is personally relevant could, for example, be about someone who is viewed as part of an ingroup and compare that to a message about someone who is viewed as part of an outgroup (social identity theory, Tajfel & Turner, 1979;social categorization theory, Turner et al., 1987).
What might also explain the contrasting findings, are the current trends regarding the rising popularity of local food products (Aprile et al., 2016;Feldmann & Hamm, 2015).Consumers perceive food products made by local producers as having a higher quality, and as complying better with their habits and requirements than regional or national food products (Pícha et al., 2018).It is possible that our social distance manipulation (i.e.personal details about the food producer) did not increase the perception that the food product is of a higher quality, as could have been the case with our physical distance manipulation, and therefore did not affect consumer acceptance of the food product.

Social identification as an underlying mechanism for the effectiveness of decreasing physical distance
As expected, our results show that the effect of physical distance on attitudes towards an agricultural sector and the intention to buy a food product can be explained by feelings of identification with a food producer.This is in line with previous studies investigating construal level theory regarding a different domain, namely sustainability messages.These studies show that effective messages aiming to decrease distance all involved some aspect of identification and decreased distance via personally relevant aspects, for example, climate impact in a participant's country versus another country (Ejelöv et al., 2018;Jones et al., 2017) and biodiversity impact on product availability in a participant's supermarket versus nature (Jäger & Weber, 2020).Though more research is needed, our results suggest that these findings might be explained by increased levels of social identification.Moreover, our study adds to this line of research, as we are among the first to show that decreasing physical distance by creating a message that consumers can E.P. Bouwman et al. identify with can also be effective at the level of food producers, which can be used in food product communication.
The role of social identification is particularly relevant from a practitioner point-of-view, as social identification can be activated in consumers, for example, via contextual cues (Winterich & Barone, 2011).Future research should explore how and under which circumstances identification with food producers, farmers or other groups can be activated and whether this will increase acceptance of food products.

Limitations and future research
Considering that our effect sizes were small, future research should investigate how the current manipulation could be strengthened.For instance, we used a text for our manipulation, but perhaps the results would be different if the manipulation was a picture of a food product that has a label with information.Moreover, future research could investigate which other manipulations of physical distance could also be effective, in addition to our manipulation which set the product's production location as inside or outside the province where our participants lived.It would also be valuable when future research explores different manipulations to reduce the physical and social distance regarding the content and the format of a message on a food product.Moreover, it could be interesting for future research to examine which other manipulations can strengthen identification besides manipulations based on construal level theory, as we found that identification with the food producer plays an important role in the intention to buy food products.
Finally, the current study was an online study that measured attitudes and intentions.As intentions do not always translate into behavior (the intention-behavior gap; Webb & Sheeran, 2006), future research could replicate this study in an actual supermarket where actual buying behavior can be measured.Moreover, future research should study how the current findings could be applied to different contexts in addition to a supermarket, for instance, at home or in a restaurant.

Implications and conclusions
As consumer purchases of local foods seem to lack behind, it is important to find ways to increase consumer acceptance of local foods.The current findings are among the first to explore consumer acceptance of local food products by disentangling the underlying mechanisms in a Dutch sample.The results of this study provide new insight into the role identification plays in the effect of psychological distance on the acceptance of food products.This insight adds to the current literature on construal level theory as it increases the understanding of the nuances within applying construal level theory to target behavior change.Moreover, practitioners (e.g. policy makers and businesses) can use these findings to develop effective communication strategies, for instance, to promote sustainable local food products.This study reveals that the right type of framing can increase the acceptance of local foods, whereas other forms might not.Producers who sell their products in (online) supermarkets, in particular, can directly apply the physical distance information, for example, by highlighting that the production location is close by a consumer's own house or by finding other ways to increase identification with a local food product, such as, highlighting influencers that also buy the product, and to whom consumers can relate to; as identification seems to be a key driver of acceptance of sustainable foods.

Fig. 1 .
Fig. 1.Serial Multiple Mediation Model of the Influence of Physical Distance on Intention through Identification with the Food Producer and Attitude towards the Agricultural Sector * = p < 0.05.** = p < 0.01.*** = p < 0.001.

Table 1
The number of participants in the conditions with gender and age demographics.

Table 2
Overview of the main effects of low and high social and physical distance on attitude, intention and identification.