The world first heard Mukbang in 2009 from South Korea and got picked up to be a popular trend by the 2010s (Parker, 2020). This study examines how the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) constructs can affect the consumers` food consumption patterns through the emotional and cognitive-behavior influence of watching Mukbang. According to Gerbens-Leenes et al. (2002), the term food consumption pattern may be defined by the quantity and combination of repeated food consumption. The researcher used an extended framework adding Mukbang as an independent variable that directly translates to "broadcast eating," which drives the dependent variables. Namely, (1) emotional when watching Mukbang in their desire to eat, increased salivation, and amusement value that affects the consumer`s food consumption pattern; and (2) cognitive-behavior, associated with the eating experiences, attitude, and perception built when watching Mukbang. The study used convenience and purposive sampling of 202 respondents that watch Mukbang at least at a particular amount of time daily. With the tool SmartPLS 3.0 (Ringle et al., 2015), the researcher tested the consistency and reliability, garnering Chronbach`s alpha results of 0.785 to 0.892. The path model coefficient showed that the subjective norm is the most significant predictor of consumers` food consumption pattern among the TPB constructs. Having the subjective norm as the highest preference suggests that the consumers are likely to get influenced by the people around them with their food consumption pattern. Using the same tool, the researcher tested the probability that resulted in the overall framework. It showed that all constructs of the TPB framework and the extended variables are of a significantly high level. The study suggests that marketers and advertisers should develop strategies and concepts that lean towards the appeal of broadcast eating behavior or Mukbang that shares reliability results at a significant level. Furthermore, this study aims to identify further the psychological effects of watching videos like Mukbang and its impact on the consumer`s behavior.
Keywords: Mukbang, Convenience Sampling, Theory of Planned Behavior, Emotional Influence, Cognitive-Behavior EffectsAjzen, I. (1991). The theory of planned behavior. Organizational behavior and human decision processes, 50(2), 179-211.
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