Promoting healthy product choices among (aware) cafeteria customers

Abstract

Background: Nudges are subtle rearrangements of a choice context that gently suggest “better†choices and that do not require conscious processing. The present poster describes two field studies with two aims. First, they examined the effects of nudges (i.e., social proof, priming, accessibility) to promote healthy food choices and second, they examined whether awareness of being nudged moderates their effectiveness. Method: In study 1, customers of a cafeteria were given food trays with placemats that primed healthiness either explicitly or implicitly. In study 2, different healthy products in a snack shop were nudged, either by making them more easily accessible or more popular. This study ran for five weeks. Week 1 served as baseline and Week 2 as the experimental phase, followed by two washout weeks and an additional experimental week. In this latter week, the nudges were disclosed to customers with an explicit sign. Product sales data were recorded as the outcome variable. Results: Results show that the nudges were effective to significantly increase sales of healthy products compared to the baseline. Disclosing the nudging interventions did not alter their effectiveness, regardless of whether the nudge itself was disclosed (Study 1) or whether the goal of the intervention was disclosed (Study 2). Conclusion: The present field studies show that it is possible to nudge people into buying more healthy foods while at the same time being upfront about the interventions.