Can the “Future Self” Promote Healthy Eating Behaviors?: The Effects of Age-Morphing Technology, Future Projections, and Self-Control on Healthy Eating Decisions

Abstract

Age-morphing technology has received scholarly and professional attention as potential strategic tools that enable people to vividly experience certain issues. This study examined the impacts of age-progression technology and the valence of future projection on healthy eating behaviors in relation to self-control levels by suggesting certain emotions (i.e., anger and disgust vs. sadness and fear) about future outcomes as underlying mechanism. In Experiment 1 (n = 138), age-morphed images led people to make healthier food choices. For people with high self-control, seeing age-morphed images led to less intention to support a health campaign. In Experiment 2 (n = 140), people who exhibited low self-control chose healthier foods when seeing a negatively projected age-morphed image rather than a positively projected one. Among different emotional responses, sadness served as a moderated mediator that encouraged people with low levels of self-control to make healthier food choices. This research expands self-control literature and appraisal theory by exploring the potential of technology for healthy eating behaviors.