The effects of social norms and observability on food choice

IF 6.8 1区经济学 Q1 AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS & POLICY

Food Policy Pub Date : 2024-05-01 DOI:10.1016/j.foodpol.2024.102621

Astrid Dannenberg , Charlotte Klatt , Eva Weingärtner

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

People often adapt their behavior to the behavior of other people. We test with the help of an experiment whether this also applies to the choice of food and whether the sensitivity regarding others’ behavior increases when the food choice is observable. Participants in the experiment are first-year students who are confronted with different statements about the diets of students already enrolled and studying at the university. Participants then choose between vouchers for vegan, vegetarian, or meat-based foods, with variation as to whether or not this choice is observable. The results show that the overall effects of social norms with and without observability are small and statistically insignificant. This is because women and men respond differently to the interventions; women are much more responsive to social norms than men, especially when their food choice can be observed by others. We discuss how our findings fit with dietary trends and what policy implications they have.

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社会规范和可观察性对食物选择的影响

人们经常会根据他人的行为来调整自己的行为。我们通过一项实验来检验这一点是否也适用于食物的选择，以及当食物的选择是可观察到的时候，人们对他人行为的敏感度是否会增加。实验的参与者是一年级的学生，他们面对的是关于已经入学并在大学学习的学生饮食的不同说法。然后，参与者在素食券、素食券或肉类食品券之间做出选择，选择是否可观察到存在差异。结果显示，可观察和不可观察的社会规范的总体影响很小，在统计上也不显著。这是因为女性和男性对干预措施的反应不同；女性对社会规范的反应比男性大得多，尤其是当她们的食物选择可以被他人观察到时。我们将讨论我们的研究结果如何与饮食趋势相吻合，以及它们对政策的影响。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Food Policy 管理科学-农业经济与政策

CiteScore

11.40

自引率

4.60%

发文量

128

审稿时长

62 days

期刊介绍： Food Policy is a multidisciplinary journal publishing original research and novel evidence on issues in the formulation, implementation, and evaluation of policies for the food sector in developing, transition, and advanced economies. Our main focus is on the economic and social aspect of food policy, and we prioritize empirical studies informing international food policy debates. Provided that articles make a clear and explicit contribution to food policy debates of international interest, we consider papers from any of the social sciences. Papers from other disciplines (e.g., law) will be considered only if they provide a key policy contribution, and are written in a style which is accessible to a social science readership.