Stimulating Sustainable Food Choices Using Virtual Reality: Taking an Environmental vs Health Communication Perspective on Enhancing Response Efficacy Beliefs

Abstract

Personal response efficacy beliefs are vital in instigating, maintaining, and catalyzing environmental behavior change. In this experimental study (N = 249), we investigated whether such efficacy beliefs could be stimulated using Virtual Reality. In a VR-supermarket, participants would see interactive pop-ups displaying impact messages when they picked up products, these are messages that display the (environmental or health) impact of a product. Our results show that these impact messages are effective in stimulating personal response efficacy beliefs and subsequently pro-environmental food choices. The heightened personal response efficacy beliefs positively affected maintaining and catalyzing behavior change (i.e. positive spill-over) up to two weeks after the VRexperience. The effectiveness of the impact messages did not depend on appeal type (health vs environmental appeal) or modality (text + visual vs text only) of the message. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

A randomized trial testing the effectiveness of virtual reality as a tool for pro-environmental dietary change

“…Both presence and agency are especially high in interactive simulations experienced through head-mounted displays (HMDs) 16 and can lead to enhanced motivation, self-efficacy, and response efficacy (factors crucial for eliciting behavioral change 8 , 17 ) when VR simulations are developed according to instructional design principles 8 , 15 , 18 , 19 . Consistent with this model, recent research shows that VR provides mastery experiences that positively impact self-efficacy and response-efficacy beliefs 17 , 20 , and that VR can help individuals to visualize the impact of their behavior on the natural environment 21 .…”

“…The intervention was designed using instructional design principles (e.g., embodiment, personalization, and modality principle) to facilitate the impact of agency and presence on the behavioral outcome 8 , 18 . Furthermore, similar to previous studies, we aimed to increase response-efficacy by visualizing the impact of individual behavior 21 , 33 , 34 , 35 , 36 , in our case the impact of food choices on the natural environment. As previous VR research shows the importance of gradual changes 37 and vivid messages 38 for behavioral change, the impact of current food choices on the environment is visualized continually by transporting participants 30 years into the future.…”

“…Despite the considerable potential of reducing GHGs emissions by adopting more plant-based diets 22 , 23 , not many VR studies investigated the potential of VR to facilitate a switch to more sustainable diets. One recent study by Meijers et al 21 reports the influence of climate impact messages on behavior in a virtual supermarket, and the indirect effect of these on self-reported consumer decision-making 1 week after the experiment. Additionally, Fonseca and Kraus 24 reported preliminary evidence that VR can be a suitable tool for promoting change in sustainable dietary behavior.…”

“…Despite the emerging evidence that VR can promote pro-environmental intentions and, in some cases, behavior, there is only limited evidence about the ability to facilitate the switch to plant-based diets 21 , 24 . Although the previous study mentioned above 21 identified personal response efficacy as an important mechanism for change in response to VR, immediate behavior change was not separate from the manipulation of impact messages, and delayed behavior change was self-report and not focused on the actual environmental impact. Furthermore, the VR study 24 using emotional VR videos focused on reducing meat consumption reported only the effect immediately after the intervention.…”

“…As previous VR research shows the importance of gradual changes 37 and vivid messages 38 for behavioral change, the impact of current food choices on the environment is visualized continually by transporting participants 30 years into the future. Furthermore, the educational part of the intervention provided users with explicit instruction on how to behave environmentally as some research highlights how the lack of specific guidelines can limit transfer to real-life behavior 39 and actual impact in terms of carbon emissions 21 . Finally, to build self-efficacy using mastery experience 40 , 35 , users were allowed to change their behavior and were given customized feedback about their choices through the gradual restoration of nature.…”