Associate Professor Chan Kai Qin, a senior lecturer at James Cook University who specialises in psychology, said that people tend to dislike disruptions to familiar routines, citing the status quo bias – a preference for keeping things the way they are.
Considering Yakult has been a fixture in Singapore for decades, any departure from the familiar was bound to trigger a reaction, he said.
The backlash may also be explained by loss aversion, a concept that suggests people feel the pain of losing something more strongly than the pleasure of gaining something new.
Consumers may not view the new peach flavour as a “real gain”, he said, as Yakult’s competitor Vitagen already offers a peach-flavoured probiotic drink.
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