Abstract
The default effect has been identified as a powerful tool to influence behavior; however, the current studies demonstrate that consumers dodge the effects of healthy defaults by selecting away from the healthy default environment, thereby reducing its effect. Two studies with real consequences and three hypothetical scenario studies in restaurant settings demonstrate that healthy defaults promote healthy food choice in the moment, but consumers choose to put themselves in environments with unhealthy defaults over those with healthy defaults. That is, healthy defaults negatively impact sales and willingness of consumers to return to the restaurant that offers them. Study 1 provides initial evidence that a healthy default reduces sales of the product compared to a less healthy default in a real gift shop. Study 2 uses an online survey with real consequences and demonstrates that participants prefer to receive meal kits from a company with unhealthy defaults over one with healthy defaults. Studies 3–5 use hypothetical scenarios to demonstrate the tendency for consumers to dodge healthy defaults. Study 3 shows that a healthy default can drive away future sales. Study 4 demonstrates that advertising a healthy default reduces interest in visiting the restaurant; that is, advertising healthy defaults drives away first-time sales. Finally, Study 5 shows that this dodge effect is robust in a between-subject manipulations using a well-known brand. The results demonstrate that consumers dodge healthy defaults by migrating to environments where unhealthy defaults are in place.
Highlights
Food consumption choices are linked to heart disease and cancer, leading causes of death in the US (Mokdad et al, 2000), yet few behavioral interventions show consistent and long-term effects on what people choose to eat
A simple change of default nudged customers toward the healthier option. This improvement in healthy eating came at a price to the store, with the healthy default reducing mug sales compared to the unhealthy default, bringing it down to the level of sales during the baseline period when no snack was offered
As planned in the preregistration, we restricted the data to the 854 (92.1%) participants who clearly knew about alternative meals and repeated the main ana lyses, and found very similar results with regard to the default effect (interaction between condition and meal kit company in ANOVA F (1, 852) = 2018.90, p < .001. partial η2 = 0.70), as well as the dodge effect (47.9% vs. 33.8% choosing Blue Apron® when it had unhealthy vs. healthy defaults, effect of condition in logistic regression Wald χ2(1, N = 854) = 17.49, p < .001, odds ratio = 1.81, 95% CI [1.37, 2.38]), con firming the robustness of these findings
Summary
Food consumption choices are linked to heart disease and cancer, leading causes of death in the US (Mokdad et al, 2000), yet few behavioral interventions show consistent and long-term effects on what people choose to eat. Recent research in psychology and behavioral economics has identified the default effect as a powerful, low cost method to “nudge” people towards optimal behavior in retirement savings (Choi, Laibson, Madrian, & Metrick, 2003; Madrian & Shea, 2001; Thaler & Benartzi, 2004), consumer purchases (Brown & Krishna, 2004; Park, Jun, & MacInnis, 2000), buying green electricity (Pichert & Katsikopoulos, 2008), vaccination (Chapman, Li, Colby, & Yoon, 2010; Chapman, Li, Leventhal, & Leventhal, 2016), and end of life decisions (Kressel & Chapman, 2007; Kressel, Chapman, & Leventhal, 2007). Imagine a consumer who on Monday orders a sandwich at a restaurant A, where the default side dish is French fries, carrot sticks can be substituted upon request for no additional cost. On Tuesday, this same consumer goes to a different sandwich restaurant,
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