Condition Nudges for Conditions

Successfully curbing harmful habits usually involves purposeful self-surveillance. Eating healthy, for instance, means ongoing dutiful attention to consuming the right foods and proper portions. Still, there are nudges which can help at a subconscious level. Because people are attracted to simplicity, default choices—requiring the consumer to make an effort if they decide to select a less healthy option---can be effective nudges. Smaller plates and larger forks are two interventions which have been found to reduce calorie intake.
     Based on their findings, University of Cambridge researchers suggest that worksite cafeterias implement a pair of nudges: Offer a higher proportion of lower-calorie items and reduce the portion sizes. Over the period of these two combined interventions, which lasted between four and thirteen weeks, the average of calories purchased by customers decreased about 12%.
     That 12% overall for the nineteen cafeteria sites was a statistically significant reduction. But for fewer than one-third of these cafeterias was the site-specific reduction statistically significant. The researchers attribute this fact at least in part to nineteen tests being done. The threshold for saying a particular result is not due just to chance is higher when you're throwing the dice many more times. In my email exchange with one of the researchers, James Reynolds, about the issue of practical versus statistical significance, he wrote, “My conclusion from this would be that behavior might have changed at many individual sites.”
    Yet it does seem the nudges were more effective with some worksite conditions than with others. In addition, conditions across all the sites might mean the conclusions would not apply universally. The researchers note how the nineteen facilities were generally in remote locations with few alternatives for purchasing food. Those cafeteria customers who were dissatisfied with the restrained-calorie offerings might have been driven toward the vending machines, which likely had sugary foods, or bringing lunch from home. The researchers’ recommendations of lower-calorie items and reduced portion sizes probably would be better for a school cafeteria than for a shopping mall buffet restaurant.
     The researchers wisely point out that their study has identified a potentially influential nudge toward better health, but that further inquiries are called for in order to best identify what will work and where. The lesson for marketers wanting to put these sorts of study results to use is to attend to the conditions which facilitate or impede the effectiveness of the nudges being considered. In doing this, go beyond analyzing what works. Determine why it’s working.

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