Cereal Deal: How the Physical Appearance of Others Affects Attention to Healthy Foods
- PDF / 782,623 Bytes
- 18 Pages / 439.37 x 666.142 pts Page_size
- 62 Downloads / 225 Views
Cereal Deal: How the Physical Appearance of Others Affects Attention to Healthy Foods Tobias Otterbring 1
& Kerstin
Gidlöf 1 & Kristian Rolschau 1 & Poja Shams 2
# Association for Behavior Analysis International 2020
Abstract This eye-tracking study investigated whether the physical appearance of another consumer can influence people’s visual attention and choice behavior in a grocery shopping context. Participants (N = 96) took part in a lab-based experiment and watched a brief video recording featuring a female consumer standing in front of a supermarket shelf. The appearance and body type of the consumer was manipulated between conditions, such that she was perceived as 1) healthy and of normal weight, 2) unhealthy by means of overweight, or 3) unhealthy through visual signs associated with a potentially unhealthy lifestyle, but not by means of overweight. Next, participants were exposed to a supermarket shelf with cereals and were asked to choose one alternative they could consider buying. Prior exposure to a seemingly unhealthy (vs. healthy) consumer resulted in a relative increase in participants’ visual attention towards products perceived to be healthy (vs. unhealthy), which prompted cereal choices deemed to be healthier. This effect was stronger for products that holistically, through their design features, managed to convey the impression that they are healthy rather than products with explicit cues linked to healthiness (i.e., the keyhole label). These results offer important implications regarding packaging design for marketers, brand owners, and policy makers. Moreover, the findings highlight the value of technological tools, such as eye-tracking methodology, for capturing consumers’ entire decision-making processes instead of focusing solely on outcome-based metrics, such as choice data or purchase behavior. Keywords Visual attention . Eye tracking . Food choice . Health . Packaging design .
Nonverbal cues
* Tobias Otterbring [email protected]
1
Department of Management/MAPP, Aarhus University, Fuglesangs Allé 4, 8210 Aarhus V, Denmark
2
Department of Business Administration & CTF, Service Research Center, Karlstad University, Universitetsgatan 2, 65188 Karlstad, Sweden
Perspectives on Behavior Science
Introduction A wide array of nonverbal social cues, ranging from physical attractiveness (Argo, Dahl, & Morales, 2008; Otterbring, 2020; Reingen & Kernan, 1993), body type (Campbell & Mohr, 2011; McFerran, Dahl, Fitzsimons, & Morales, 2010a; Otterbring, Ringler, Sirianni, & Gustafsson, 2018), and facial expressions (Fagerstrøm, Pawar, Sigurdsson, Foxall, & Yani-de-Soriano, 2017; Otterbring, 2017; Small & Verrochi, 2009), to physical proximity (Argo, Dahl, & Manchanda, 2005; Luck & Benkenstein, 2015; Xu, Shen, & Wyer, 2012), interpersonal touch (Crusco & Wetzel, 1984; Gallace & Spence, 2010), and the real or imagined presence of others (Griskevicius, Tybur, & Van den Bergh, 2010; Otterbring & Lu, 2018; Söderlund, 2016), have been shown to influence consumers’ responses in various sales and ser
Data Loading...
