Abstract
Effects of Food Neophobia on Socio-Cultural Adaptation and Occupational Satisfaction: The Sample of Tourism Undergraduate Students
Food Neophobia, which is the subject of many academic studies, is defined as the avoidance of foods from different cultures. Individuals tend to consume familiar foods. However, the state of not being open to new foods also affects the social and business lives of individuals. Accordingly measuring the effects of tourism undergraduate students' foodneophobia in food on occupational job satisfaction and socio-cultural adaptation has been purposed in this study. Questionnaire technique was used as data collection method. The universe of the study consists of undergraduate students of Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University Tourism Faculty. Within the scope of the survey, 162 students were included in the sample group. The analysis of the research was made with the Smart PLS program. According to the results of the research, it is found that while the foodneophobia increases, occupational job satisfaction and socio-cultural harmony decrease. In addition, it is seen that the fear of novelty in food causes a decrease in the dimensions of ecological harmony, job performance, interpersonal communication and language proficiency. After graduation, tourism students will have to work in other places and interact with other cultures. Therefore, it is seen that foodneophobia affects both the professional job satisfaction of the students and their adaptation to different socio-cultural environments positively/negatively.
Keywords
Food Neophobia, Socio-cultural Adaptation, Job Satisfaction
