Nudging Sustainable Food Choices. The Role of Defaults, Frames, Habits and Nature Relatedness

Abstract

Reduced consumption of meat could help mitigate climate change and health problems. Nudging is one approach to individual behavior change. By nudging, the choice context is designed to facilitate certain decisions. In the present field experiment, three different nudges were tested, aiming at increasing vegetarian food selection among 353 customers in a café. The menu was changed so that the vegetarian food options were either presented as the dish of the day (DEFAULT) or given a more attractive name (FRAMING). Additionally, a combination of the two (DEFAULT+FRAMING) was tested. To investigate whether the effect of the nudges depended on individual factors, the customers filled out a survey in which they reported their meat consumption habits and their sense of connection to the natural world (Nature Relatedness). When looking at all customers, the nudges showed no effect on food choice. However, to of the three nudges had an effect for customers with low Nature Relatedness. Moreover, customers with high meat consumption in their daily lives were more likely to select vegetarian food in the combination nudge DEFAULT+FRAME. Hence, the findings indicate that by giving vegetarian food a more attractive name and salient presentation, it can appeal to customers otherwise unlikely to select vegetarian food.

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