Seeing is for Doing: An Embodied Cognition Approach to Nudging

Abstract

Society is experiencing a problem of overconsumption and unhealthy food choices. The current thesis investigates how these behaviors and choices are influenced by visual exposure to accessible food in the obesogenic environment. While the influence of accessibility of food on consumption has been shown consistently, the cognitive mechanisms underlying the effects lack scientific inquiry. For that purpose the thesis reports four experiments that describe how consumers are influences by the availibility of food in their near environment, as well as the processes by which this influence exerts itself. This understanding yields the opportunity to employ the environment’s influence for the promotion of health behaviors, as suggested by proponents of choice architectures and nudging. While these strategies may promote health behaviors, they have been criticized for their potentially harmful consequences for consumers and society. The target group of nudging strategies however, the consumers, have remained excluded from these discussions and their attitude towards nudging remains to be investigated. For that reason the second part of the thesis describes four studies that investigate the effectiveness of designing environments to promote health behavior, as well as consumers attitudes towards the implementation of such strategues.