When tradition meets tomorrow: Personal cultural orientations, normative influence and attitudes toward sustainable food consumption

Research on sustainable food consumption typically treats culture as a country-level context, overlooking how person-level cultural orientations translate into evaluations toward sustainable food consumption via concrete sociopsychological mechanisms. We address this gap by embedding two Personal Cultural Orientations, Tradition and Prudence, in a norm internalization pathway to explain their effects on attitudes toward sustainable food consumption. Building on an integrative conceptual model that draws on relevant insights from Schwartz Theory of Basic Human Values, the Value-Belief-Norm theory coupled with the Norm Activation Model, and aligning with the attitudinal component of the Theory of Planned Behavior, we analyzed data from an online representative consumer survey of 2,296 adults in five European countries (Portugal, Italy, Greece, Bulgaria, Hungary). Both Tradition and Prudence exerted significant positive indirect effects on attitudes toward sustainable food consumption through a sequential pathway from social to personal norms. Direct effects were non-significant or weak in most countries; Tradition exhibited indirect only mediation in all countries, whereas the Prudence effect was indirect in three countries and complementary in two. These findings clarify where culture does its work, by shaping perceived social approval that crystallizes into personal moral obligation. Theoretically, we integrate person-level culture with norm-based accounts of attitude formation and mitigate ecological fallacy. Practically, findings highlight leveraging cultural conditions for SFC, including aligning sustainable practices with tradition, designing campaigns that leverage community role models, and appeals to prudential orientations that move sustainable consumption toward wider societal uptake. • Limited evidence on how personal culture shapes attitudes toward sustainable food consumption • Representative survey of 2,296 adults across five European countries • Tradition influences attitudes indirectly via social then personal norms • Prudence exerts indirect effects on attitudes via the same sequential mechanism • Alignment of sustainable practices with heritage and prudential appeals