Under consumers’ scrutiny - an investigation into consumers’ attitudes and concerns about nudging in the realm of health behavior

Abstract

BackgroundNudging strategies have recently attracted attention from scholars and policy makers for their potential in influencing people’s behaviors on large scales. But is the fact that nudges do not forbid any choice-options or significantly alter people’s economic incentives sufficient to conclude that nudges should be implemented? While this is discussed amongst scholars from various disciplines the voices of consumers, the target-group of nudges, remain unheard. Since understanding their knowledge about nudging and their opinions on being nudged are crucial for the evaluation of the moral appropriateness of nudging, the current study examines consumers’ knowledge of and attitudes toward nudging in general and the realm of health behavior.MethodsIn this qualitative investigation in-depth semi-structured interviews with UK consumers were conducted to examine consumers’ attitudes to four domains of inquiry around which the scholarly discussions about nudging have revolved: consumers’ approval of nudging, consumers’ views on the origin of nudges, consumers’ perceived effectiveness of nudging, and consumers’ concerns about manipulative aspects of nudging.ResultsInterviews revealed that consumers are largely unfamiliar with the concept of nudging altogether. Once defined and explained to them most consumers approve of the concept, especially in the realm of health behavior, given particular conditions: 1. Nudges should be designed for benefiting individuals and society; 2. consumers comprehend the decision-making context and the reasoning behind the promotion of the targeted behavior. Interviews revealed very limited concerns with manipulative aspects of nudges.ConclusionsThese findings call for better information-management to ensure consumers knowledge of nudges and awareness of their current implementation. Under that condition the findings encourage the implementation of nudges benefitting individuals and society in domains that consumers comprehend, such as health behaviors. Further research is required to clarify consumers’ concerns and requirements for nudges in more complex domains such as financial decisions and retirement plans.

Substituting sugar confectionery with fruit and healthy snacks at checkout – a win-win strategy for consumers and food stores? a study on consumer attitudes and sales effects of a healthy supermarket intervention

“…The related theme on ambivalent responsibility-participants stressing individual or parental responsibility for making healthy food choices on the one hand and the positive attitudes towards reducing store temptations on the other-was found across our qualitative data collected in different ways and across community and store settings. Furthermore, this ambivalent responsibility theme is in keeping with surveys showing broad support of statements stressing the individual responsibility for health while at the same time strongly supporting the idea of conducting health promoting interventions in public environments especially those targeting children [11, 42, 43]. This finding is also in line with studies identifying themes of individualization, self-control and self-responsibility in both consumer and food retailer discourses on healthy food choices [44–47].…”

I’m still standing: A longitudinal study on the effect of a default nudge

“…Thereby, it is relevant to note that a majority of employees were positive about the nudge intervention. This aligns with prior research indicating that people are generally appreciative of nudges that help them perform health behaviours (Kroese et al, 2016;Junghans, Cheung, & De Ridder, 2015). Only a minority of 11% indicated to disapprove of the nudge intervention, which is low when placing this percentage in the context of nudge approval in general: a recent paper by Reisch and Sunstein (2016) indicated that 42% of their polled Europeans disapproved of the presented default nudges.…”

Which Europeans Like Nudges? Approval and Controversy in Four European Countries

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