Nudging healthy and sustainable food choices: three randomized controlled field experiments using a vegetarian lunch-default as a normative signal

Hansen, Pelle Guldborg; Schilling, Mathilde; Malthesen, Mia

doi:10.1093/pubmed/fdz154

Cited by 76 publications

(56 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…When possible, it is also up to the policy-maker to consider nudges, which can, under certain circumstances, overcome the trade-off between coerciveness and effectiveness. Promising research has also already started in this direction [ 59 , 60 ].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Acceptability of Food Policies

Espinosa

Nassar

2021

Nutrients

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We propose and test a model of food policy acceptability. The model is structured in four levels: government, topic, policy, and individual. In this study, we focus on two levels that are actionable for policy-makers: the topic and policy levels. We assess nine factors using a first online survey with 600 UK nationals and replicate our results in a second survey with 588 participants. Our results suggest that three factors have a positive effect on acceptability at the topic level: awareness of the issue, the legitimacy of state intervention, and social norms. At the policy level, we report a positive effect of the policy’s expected effectiveness, its appropriate targeting of consumers, and the perceived support of the majority. On the other hand, more coercive interventions and those generating inequalities are judged to be less acceptable. Additionally, we report an interaction between awareness and coerciveness on acceptability. Participants who are aware of the issue were more likely to support coercive policies. We also find evidence for a trade-off between coerciveness, effectiveness, and acceptability, as more coercive measures are considered more effective, but less acceptable by participants. Our findings offer policy-makers, nutrition experts, and advocates for healthier and more sustainable diets a new and integrated understanding of the underlying factors that determine food policy acceptability.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Acceptability of Food Policies

Espinosa

Nassar

2021

Nutrients

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“…However, we do not think that it was the default alone that caused the low ratings, since there are field experiments whose results show that people approve of having their own behavior changed by BIs using defaults. For instance, after being exposed to a BI that presented the vegetarian meal as a default when registering for a conferenceincreasing the number choosing the vegetarian meal from 13% to 89% -90% of those exposed said that they approved of changing the default (Hansen et al, 2019). In addition, after an intervention that changed the default positions of sit-stand desks in a workplace to the standing position, increasing the rate of standing from 1.8% to 13.1%, 56.5% of employees said that it was acceptable to be unconsciously influenced in this way (Venema et al, 2018).…”

Section: General Discussion and Conclusionmentioning

confidence: 99%

‘Better off, as judged by themselves’: do people support nudges as a method to change their own behavior?

Gold

Lin

Ashcroft

et al. 2020

Behav. Public Policy

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In this study, we investigated how people evaluate behavioral interventions (BIs) that are targeted at themselves, aiming to promote their own health and wellbeing. We compared the impact on people's assessments of the acceptability of using BIs to change their own behavior of: the transparency of the BI (transparent or opaque); the designer of the BI (researchers, government policy-makers, advertisers); and three types of arguments regarding their efficacy (positive, positive + negative, negative). Our target BIs were actual interventions that have been used in a range of policy domains (diet, exercise, alcohol consumption, smoking, personal finances). We found that transparent BIs were considered more acceptable than opaque BIs. On average, all BIs were considered acceptable for changing participants’ own behavior, except for the opaque BI in the finance context; there was differential acceptability of BIs across contexts, with finance clearly least acceptable. However, the perceived effectiveness of the BIs was at least as influential a predictor of acceptability ratings as the ease of identification of the behavior change mechanism across the five contexts. Furthermore, effectiveness was partially mediated by desire to change, suggesting that people do think BIs make them better off, ‘as judged by themselves’.

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“…Our results suggest that the effect of the present affirmation procedure is unlikely to be large. Although small effects can have tangible benefits in the aggregate (Funder & Ozer, 2019), the relative costs and benefits of such an intervention need to be weighed against potential alternatives (see e.g., Hansen et al, 2019).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%