Mothers' cooking stress and family dining out : examining psychological influences and family dining out benefits on mothers' life satisfaction

Abstract

This study aimed to (1) to examine whether the constructs of dining out constraints (i.e., interpersonal constraint, structural constraint, and intrapersonal constraint) influence the frequency of mothers dining out with their family, (2) to investigate the relationship between cooking stress, the need for a reward, the desire to dine out, constraints, and the frequency of dining out as leisure, focusing on the entire process from problem/need recognition to purchase decision, (3) to identify whether dining out benefits (i.e., enjoyment, convenience, detachment, relaxation, and learning experience) influence the life satisfaction of mothers, and (4) to assess the moderating effects of mothers' cooking stress on the relationships among dining out benefits and life satisfaction. The results for the constraint model indicated that both interpersonal and structural constraints of dining out have significantly negative impacts on family dining out frequency, but it was failed to find the effect of intrapersonal constraint on family dining out frequency. The findings for the decision-making model indicated that cooking stress has significantly positive impacts on both desire to dine out and need for reward. It was also found that need for reward has a significantly positive impact on desire to dine out, and that desire to dine out has a significantly positive impact on perceived frequency of family dining out as leisure. It was revealed that desire to dine out also has significantly positive impacts on both interpersonal constraint and intrapersonal constraint, while there did not seem to be a positive relationship between desire to dine out and structural constraint. Both interpersonal constraint and structural constraint did not have significantly negative impacts on perceived frequency of dining out. Yet, intrapersonal constraint had a significantly negative impact on perceived frequency of dining out. The results for the benefit model indicated that enjoyment, convenience, relaxation, and learning experience have significantly positive impacts on life satisfaction after family dining out. On the other hand, detachment did not have a significant impact on life satisfaction after family dining out. Regarding the moderating effects of high versus low cooking stress groups, the effects of convenience and learning experience on life satisfaction were significantly smaller in the high cooking stress group than in the low cooking stress group, but the effects of enjoyment on life satisfaction were significantly stronger in the high cooking stress group than in the low cooking stress group. The effects of detachment and relaxation on life satisfaction were not significantly different between the high and low cooking stress groups. The implications of these findings for the restaurant management strategies to attract mothers and their families are discussed.