Despite much effort to decrease food intake by altering portion sizes, "super-sized" meals are the preferred choice of many. This research investigated the extent to which individuals can be subtly incentivized to choose smaller portion sizes. Three randomized experiments (2 in the lab and 1 in the field) established that individuals' choice of full-sized food portions is reduced when they are given the opportunity to choose a half-sized version with a modest nonfood incentive. This substitution effect was robust across different nonfood incentives, foods, populations, and time. Experiment 1 established the effect with children, using inexpensive headphones as nonfood incentives. Experiment 2--a longitudinal study across multiple days--generalized this effect with adults, using the mere chance to win either gift cards or frequent flyer miles as nonfood incentives. Experiment 3 demonstrated the effect among actual restaurant customers who had originally planned to eat a full-sized portion, using the mere chance to win small amounts of money. Our investigation broadens the psychology of food portion choice from perceptual and social factors to motivational determinants.
Although one third of children and adolescents are overweight or obese, developmental changes in food craving and the ability to regulate craving remain poorly understood. We addressed this knowledge gap by examining behavioral and neural responses to images of appetizing unhealthy foods in individuals ages 6 through 23 years. On close trials (assessing unregulated craving), participants focused on a pictured food’s appetitive features. On far trials (assessing effortful regulation), participant...
To encourage an increase in daily activity, researchers have tried a variety of health-related communications, but with mixed results. In the present research—using the stair escalator choice context—we examined predictions derived from the Heuristic Systematic Model (HSM), Self Determination Theory (SDT), and related theories. Specifically, we tested whether (as predicted by HSM) signs that encourage heuristic processing (“Take the Stairs”) would have greatest impact when placed at the stair/es...
Summary Background In 2010, overweight and obesity were estimated to cause 3·4 million deaths, 3·9% of years of life lost, and 3·8% of disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) worldwide. The rise in obesity has led to widespread calls for regular monitoring of changes in overweight and obesity prevalence in all populations. Comparable, up-to-date information about levels and trends is essential to quantify population health effects and to prompt decision makers to prioritise action. We estimate th...
Research on the self-serving of food has empirically ignored the role that visual consumption norms play in determining how much food we serve on different sized dinnerware. We contend that dinnerware provides a visual anchor of an appropriate fill-level, which in turn, serves as a consumption norm (Study 1). The trouble with these dinnerware-suggested consumption norms is that they vary directly with dinnerware size—Study 2 shows Chinese buffet diners with large plates served 52% more, ate 45% ...
#2Joseph Price(BYU: Brigham Young University)H-Index: 26
There is growing interest in the situations in which incentives have a significant effect on positive behaviors, particularly in children. Using a randomized field experiment, we find that incentives increase the fraction of children eating a serving of fruits or vegetables during lunch by 80 percent and reduce the amount of waste by 33 percent. At schools with a larger fraction of low-income children, the increase in the fraction of children who eat a serving of fruits or vegetables is even lar...
Despite the challenged contention that consumers serve more onto larger dinnerware, it remains unclear what would cause this and who might be most at risk. The results of five studies suggest that the neglected Delboeuf illusion may explain how the size of dinnerware creates two opposing biases that lead people to overserve on larger plates and bowls and underserve on smaller ones. A countercyclical sinus-shaped relationship is shown to exist between these serving biases and the relative gap bet...
The term “hunger” and terms referring to its physiological correlates, notably “salivation,” are used to refer to desire for material rewards across languages and cultures. Is such usage is “merely metaphorical,” or can exposure to material reward cues evoke a salivary response? Results of an experiment show that individuals salivate to money when induced to experience a low power state but not when induced to experience a high power state. A second experiment shows that men salivate to sports c...
Last. Paul Rozin(UPenn: University of Pennsylvania)H-Index: 109
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Objective To discover a scalable method of food-packaging presentation, which can help reduce per occasion food consumption by making portions sizes more salient and segmented. Methods Two studies of American undergraduates who ate from tubes of potato chips while watching a movie. In each study, participants ate chips that were either identical (the control group) or which had colored chips inserted at regular intervals (the treatment groups). One treatment group had a distinctively different (...
Grounded in nearly a century of scientific research, Mastering Self Control is an academic 'how to' in the mastery of self control. Though most of us have an acute awareness of the goals we want to achieve, we have little insight into how we respond to questions central to successful goal attainment. What is a realistic goal? Can we turn intentions to actions? Why do we need a support system? It is within this context that this volume identifies a series of actionable strategies to push readers ...
#1Jan Bauer(CBS: Copenhagen Business School)H-Index: 11
#2Lucia A. Reisch(CBS: Copenhagen Business School)H-Index: 38
This paper reviews the current evidence about behavioural insights in the field of (un)healthy food choice that can support the development of behavioural public-policy tools. It extends previous work on behaviourally based policies in health and food choice, both academic and professional. The core of the paper is a summary of reviews of behavioural insights-based interventions and the scientific evidence regarding their efficacy in nudging people towards healthier food choices. Overall, we cov...
The purpose of this paper is to provide some background and context to MacInnis’ 33-year life as a marketing academic and to share some of the trials, tribulations and joys that have characterized her professional career.,This paper is autobiographical, highlighting some key aspects of MacInnis’ career, including the various educational, administrative, editorial, teaching and consulting roles she has held and how they have influenced her development as a scholar.,MacInnis emphasizes the importa...
Last. Alberto Lopez(Tec: Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education)H-Index: 3
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: Across 4 experiments, this research is the first to uncover the interaction effect of food type (indulgent vs. healthy) and food presentation order (first vs. last) on individuals' sequential food choices and their overall caloric intake. This work showed that, when selecting foods in a sequence (e.g., at a buffet or on a food ordering website), individuals are influenced by the first item they see and tend to make their subsequent food choices on the basis of this first item. This notion can ...
SummaryIntroduction Ready-to-eat meals sold by food outlets that are accessible to the general public are an important target for public health intervention. We conducted a systematic review to assess the impact of such interventions. Methods Studies of any design and duration that included any consumer-level or food-outlet-level before-and-after data were included. Results Thirty studies describing 34 interventions were categorized by type and coded against the Nuffield intervention ladder: res...
#2Kristen Lane(UA: University of Arizona)H-Index: 1
The goal of this research was to test whether including an inexpensive nonfood item (toy) with a smaller-sized meal bundle (420 calories), but not with the regular-sized meal bundle version (580 calories), would incentivize children to choose the smaller-sized meal bundle, even among children with overweight and obesity. Logistic regression was used to evaluate the effect in a between-subjects field experiment of a toy on smaller-sized meal choice (here, a binary choice between a smaller-sized o...
Last. Antoine Bechara(SC: University of Southern California)H-Index: 105
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AbstractCan smaller meals make you happy? Four studies show that offering consumers the choice between a full-sized food portion alone and a half-sized food portion paired with a small nonfood premium (e.g., a small Happy Meal toy or the mere possibility of winning frequent flyer miles) motivates smaller portion choice. Importantly, we investigate why this is the case and find that both food and the prospect of receiving a nonfood premium activate a common area of the brain (the striatum), which...
