AbstractWe conducted a study to investigate how self‐construal priming can modulate the influence of receptacles on people's food perception. Self‐construal refers to how an individual views the self, with interdependent or independent self‐construal describing the self as a context‐embedded or context‐independent entity, respectively. After reading an essay containing either interdependent or independent pronouns, each of 112 Chinese participants viewed photos of Asian noodles served on plates of different sizes and colors and rated their feelings about and willingness to pay for these foods. Compared to independent self‐construal priming, priming with the interdependent self‐construal elicited a greater influence of plate size on the participants' willingness to pay for the noodles as well as the pleasantness ratings of the noodles served on red plates. Collectively, these findings suggest that the consumers' processing of and sensitivity to contextual information can be modulated by self‐construal priming when they are evaluating food products.Practical applicationsPrevious research demonstrated that people from varied cultural backgrounds are differently susceptible to the influence of contextual cues, such as the receptacles in which foods or drinks are served. The results of this study suggested that priming with the interdependent self‐construal could strengthen the influence of plate size on the participants' judgments and decisions about foods. These findings provide insights into how the nudging effects of contextual cues may vary as a function of the consumers' self‐construal. Moreover, the findings of this study suggest that consumers' susceptibility to immediate contextual cues may be temporarily modulated via presenting verbal materials, which has direct implications in the practice of sensory nudging in the process of selling or serving foods. For example, advertisements or menus may be skillfully designed to contain cues that can prime self‐construal in customers to subtly modulate the influence of contextual cues on their judgment and decisions about foods.