public health

Relatively Tempting: Calorie Difference, Self-Control and Food Choices
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Relatively Tempting: Calorie Difference, Self-Control and Food Choices

Health & Medicine, Marketing & Consumer Behavior

Relatively Tempting: Calorie Difference, Self-Control and Food Choices

Obesity has become a health crisis in many countries. Some governments have begun to mandate the display of calorie information on fast-food menus. However, research has offered mixed results regarding the effect of calorie information on consumed calories. This may be partly explained by two opposing forces: the calorie content of food alternatives and the relative calorie distance between food items. New research reported here suggests that the impact of calorie information depends on the relative magnitudes of these two variables.

By Samir Huseynov|2022-02-17T05:24:19+00:00September 13th, 2021|Categories: Health & Medicine, Marketing & Consumer Behavior|Tags: consumer behavior, food labeling, nutrition, public health, public policy, self-control|

Tell Me Why! Explanations for Ambiguity in Health Decision Making Affect Treatment Choice
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Tell Me Why! Explanations for Ambiguity in Health Decision Making Affect Treatment Choice

Behavioral Theory & Insights, Health & Medicine

Tell Me Why! Explanations for Ambiguity in Health Decision Making Affect Treatment Choice

Medical treatment decisions are often rife with ambiguity. Exact probabilities for things like side effects or treatment success rates are frequently unknown. But why is this important? Because decision making research has shown that ambiguity can systematically alter the choices people make. We investigated how providing different explanations for the ambiguity in a treatment decision context affected willingness to adopt a treatment with an ambiguously described success rate. When the explanations involved elements that the person was knowledgeable about or could control, people were more interested in an ambiguous treatment.

By Jillian O’Rourke Stuart|2022-05-26T06:59:13+00:00August 30th, 2021|Categories: Behavioral Theory & Insights, Health & Medicine|Tags: ambiguity aversion, communication, decision making, framing, personal health, public health, salience, treatment choice|

National Identity and Public Health Behaviors During Covid-19
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National Identity and Public Health Behaviors During Covid-19

Cross-Cultural Perspectives, Health & Medicine

National Identity and Public Health Behaviors During Covid-19

In a massive international collaboration including more than 200 researchers, we examined the adoption of public health behaviors and support of public policy interventions during the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic. We found that individuals who identified more strongly with their nation reported greater engagement in public health behaviors and greater support for public health policies. This result was later replicated using aggregated behavioral data.

By Hallgeir Sjåstad|2022-02-17T05:51:59+00:00June 8th, 2021|Categories: Cross-Cultural Perspectives, Health & Medicine|Tags: behavior change, covid-19, data analytics, data science, identity, public health, public policy, RCT|

Do Lab Studies Replicate in the Field? The Case of Simplified Nutrition Labels
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Do Lab Studies Replicate in the Field? The Case of Simplified Nutrition Labels

Behavioral Theory & Insights, Health & Medicine, Marketing & Consumer Behavior, Research Methods

Do Lab Studies Replicate in the Field? The Case of Simplified Nutrition Labels

There is a growing concern that the academic literature, because of publication biases and other limitations of single-shot, lab-based studies, overstates the power of nudges in real life. We examined this issue in a 10-week RCT in 60 supermarkets comparing 4 front-of-pack simplified nutrition labels. The good news is that the ordering of the nutrition labels was the same as in published lab-based studies. The bad news is that our effect sizes were, on average, 17 times smaller than in the published literature.

By Pierre Chandon|2022-06-30T01:20:06+00:00October 6th, 2020|Categories: Behavioral Theory & Insights, Health & Medicine, Marketing & Consumer Behavior, Research Methods|Tags: consumer behavior, food labeling, generalizability, incentives, nutrition, public health, RCT, replication, shopping|

Why Talking Calories Defeats the Point of Nudging
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Why Talking Calories Defeats the Point of Nudging

Health & Medicine, Marketing & Consumer Behavior

Why Talking Calories Defeats the Point of Nudging

A frequent misconception we hold is believing that what makes food healthy or unhealthy is the number of calories it contains. We know that soda is unhealthy and has a lot of calories and that chamomile infusion is healthy and does not have a lot of calories.

By Laura Mneimneh|2022-02-17T06:24:48+00:00April 14th, 2018|Categories: Health & Medicine, Marketing & Consumer Behavior|Tags: decision making, food labeling, framing, nudge, nutrition, public health|

Why We’re Loving It: The Psychology Behind the McDonald’s Restaurant of the Future
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Why We’re Loving It: The Psychology Behind the McDonald’s Restaurant of the Future

Marketing & Consumer Behavior

Why We’re Loving It: The Psychology Behind the McDonald’s Restaurant of the Future

Insights into the innovative behavioural design that underpins McDonald’s reinvention.

By Luke Battye|2022-02-17T06:25:24+00:00January 10th, 2018|Categories: Marketing & Consumer Behavior|Tags: behavioral design, behavioral economics, choice architecture, consumer behavior, health, marketing, nudge, public health, restaurant|

A Run-Down of the CEGA Behavioral Economics in Global Health Conference
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A Run-Down of the CEGA Behavioral Economics in Global Health Conference

Cross-Cultural Perspectives, Emerging & Developing Economies, Health & Medicine

A Run-Down of the CEGA Behavioral Economics in Global Health Conference

“How can we use behavioral insights to nudge individuals into better health decision making?” This is one of the fundamental questions that inspired the third annual Conference on Behavioral Economics (BE) in Global Health at UC Berkeley, organized by the Behavioral Economics in Reproductive Health Initiative (BERI) at the Center for Effective Global Action (CEGA).

By Patrick Krause|2022-02-17T06:50:12+00:00September 30th, 2016|Categories: Cross-Cultural Perspectives, Emerging & Developing Economies, Health & Medicine|Tags: behavior change, behavioral science, developing nations, government, health, hygiene, international development, medicine, nudge, nudging, present bias, public health, public policy, reproductive health, world bank|

Behavioral Economics and Healthcare: A Match Made in Heaven
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Behavioral Economics and Healthcare: A Match Made in Heaven

Behavioral Theory & Insights, Health & Medicine

Behavioral Economics and Healthcare: A Match Made in Heaven

By Benjamin Voyer Out of all the areas of public life that can benefit from the applications of behavioural economics (BE) principles, healthcare is probably the one where it can make the biggest societal contribution. There are two main reasons why the healthcare industry should welcome (more!) BE insights. The first reason is that many [...]