Self-Persuasion Increases Healthy Eating Intention Depending on Cultural Background

Shuang Li, Cor van Halen, Rick B. van Baaren and Barbara C. N. Müller
Additional contact information
Shuang Li: Institute of Governance, Shandong University, Qingdao 266237, China
Cor van Halen: Behavioural Science Institute, Radboud University, 6500 HE Nijmegen, The Netherlands
Rick B. van Baaren: Behavioural Science Institute, Radboud University, 6500 HE Nijmegen, The Netherlands
Barbara C. N. Müller: Behavioural Science Institute, Radboud University, 6500 HE Nijmegen, The Netherlands

IJERPH, 2020, vol. 17, issue 10, 1-14

Abstract: Unhealthy eating behavior has become a global health risk and thus needs to be influenced. Previous research has found that self-persuasion is more effective than direct persuasion in changing attitudes and behavioral intentions, but the influence of the cultural backgrounds of those being persuaded remains unclear. We conducted two studies to investigate the effectiveness of self-persuasion and direct persuasion techniques in promoting healthy eating intention among different ethnicities in the Netherlands. Native Dutch, Moroccan–Dutch, and Turkish–Dutch participated both online and offline. Participants saw a poster with either a self-persuasion message (“Why would you choose healthier food?”) or a direct persuasion message (“Choose healthier food!”), and were then asked to report their intention to eat healthily in the upcoming month. Significant cultural differences were found between native Dutch and Moroccan–Dutch in Study 1, and between the native Dutch and Turkish-Dutch who participated offline in Study 2. Accordingly, cultural background was found to moderate the relationship between persuasion and healthy eating intention among these groups. These results provided preliminary evidence for the moderation effect of persuasion on healthy eating intention: Self-persuasion appears to be more effective for people with an individualistic background, and direct persuasion appears to be more effective for people with a collectivistic background.

Keywords: self-persuasion; direct persuasion; cultural background; healthy eating intention; persuasion communication (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/10/3405/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/10/3405/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:17:y:2020:i:10:p:3405-:d:357650

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().