New Research in the Journal of Retailing

How do parents make food choices for their children? In a new article in the Journal of Retailing, Professor Matta and his co-authors investigate parental food choice for their children at a fast food restaurant and develop an intervention to nudge these parents toward making healthier choices. Across four field studies conducted at restaurant locations of a fast food chain, they predict and find that parents with a high tendency to engage in social comparison and a malleable view of the self are most likely to conform to the norm in their parental social network. Given that the norm in the population studied is to order a less healthy side item (e.g., fries) versus a healthy side item (e.g., fruit), conforming results in significantly less healthy orders for the children of these individuals. They demonstrate that a social norm-based intervention designed to set a new healthy norm in this retail environment succeeded in increasing the overall proportion of parents that chose a healthy side item by over 29% by increasing the choice of healthy sides specifically for these individuals.

This article published in the Journal of Retailing is freely accessible here.

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