Effects of physical cleansing on subsequent unhealthy eating
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Effects of physical cleansing on subsequent unhealthy eating Jungkeun Kim 1 & Jae-Eun Kim 2 & Jongwon Park 3
# Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2018
Abstract Over five experiments, we demonstrate that physical cleansing (e.g., handwashing) can reduce consumers’ unhealthy eating in subsequent unrelated contexts, by decreasing their choice of vice food (e.g., chocolate cake) versus virtue food (e.g., fruit salad) and their preferred amount vice food for consumption. This effect generalizes over different food stimuli and different operationalizations of physical cleansing (i.e., actual cleansing, visualized cleansing, and vicarious cleansing). Further, an analogous effect occurs for consumers’ unethical choice in a non-food domain, thus increasing the generalizability of the cleansing effect. Finally, one potential mechanism of the effect based on the metaphorical associations between physical cleanliness and moral purity and between vice food and immoral consumption is suggested. Keywords Physical cleansing . Vice versus virtue foods . Food consumption . Morality Obesity is one of the most serious social problems in the contemporary society. Although obesity could stem from individuals’ chronic metabolic problems, the most important cause of it is unhealthy eating behaviors, such as choosing unhealthy food
* Jongwon Park [email protected] Jungkeun Kim [email protected] Jae-Eun Kim [email protected]
1
Department of Marketing, Auckland University of Technology, Private Bag 92006, Auckland 1142, New Zealand
2
Department of Marketing, Business School, The University of Auckland, Private Bag 92019, Auckland 1010, New Zealand
3
Korea University Business School, Korea University, 1 Anam-Dong, Sungbuk-Gu, Seoul, South Korea
Mark Lett
and overeating. Prior research has identified a number of direct determinants of unhealthy eating, including eaters’ individual characteristics (e.g., impulsivity), food characteristics (e.g., size, physical appearance, smell), tableware characteristics (e.g., size of plate, fork, spoon), nutritional information, and contextual variables (e.g., priming, cognitive distraction) (see Wansink and Chandon 2014 for a review). The present research contributes to the literature by identifying a novel influencer—an act of physical cleansing (e.g., handwashing) prior to decision making. Based on research concerning the effect of physical cleansing on moral decision making (Lee and Schwarz 2011; Zhong and Liljenquist 2006) and research on consumers’ choice between vice and virtue food (Mishra and Mishra 2011; Wertenbroch 1998), we propose and demonstrate that physical cleansing reduces consumers’ unhealthy eating behavior in a subsequent unrelated context. Five experiments show that physical cleansing decreases participants’ choice of vice food (e.g., chocolate cake) vs. virtue food (e.g., salad) and their preferred quantity of vice food for consumption. Further, this effect generalizes over different operationalizations of physical cleansing (actual, visual
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