Are You “Nudgeable”? Factors Affecting the Acceptance of Healthy Eating Nudges in a Cafeteria Setting

Christine Kawa, Wim H. Gijselaers, Jan F. H. Nijhuis and Patrizia M. Ianiro-Dahm
Additional contact information
Christine Kawa: Department of Management Sciences, University of Applied Sciences Bonn-Rhein-Sieg, 53359 Rheinbach, Germany
Wim H. Gijselaers: Department of Educational Research and Development, School of Business and Economics, Maastricht University, 6211 LM Maastricht, The Netherlands
Jan F. H. Nijhuis: Department of Educational Research and Development, School of Business and Economics, Maastricht University, 6211 LM Maastricht, The Netherlands
Patrizia M. Ianiro-Dahm: Department of Management Sciences, University of Applied Sciences Bonn-Rhein-Sieg, 53359 Rheinbach, Germany

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 7, 1-20

Abstract: Research has identified nudging as a promising and effective tool to improve healthy eating behavior in a cafeteria setting. However, it remains unclear who is and who is not “nudgeable” (susceptible to nudges). An important influencing factor at the individual level is nudge acceptance. While some progress has been made in determining influences on the acceptance of healthy eating nudges, research on how personal characteristics (such as the perception of social norms) affect nudge acceptance remains scarce. We conducted a survey on 1032 university students to assess the acceptance of nine different types of healthy eating nudges in a cafeteria setting with four influential factors (social norms, health-promoting collaboration, responsibility to promote healthy eating, and procrastination). These factors are likely to play a role within a university and a cafeteria setting. The present study showed that key influential factors of nudge acceptance were the perceived responsibility to promote healthy eating and health-promoting collaboration. We also identified three different student clusters with respect to nudge acceptance, demonstrating that not all nudges were accepted equally. In particular, default, salience, and priming nudges were at least moderately accepted regardless of the degree of nudgeability. Our findings provide useful policy implications for nudge development by university, cafeteria, and public health officials. Recommendations are formulated for strengthening the theoretical background of nudge acceptance and the susceptibility to nudges.

Keywords: nudge; healthy eating; acceptance; cafeteria; health intervention; susceptibility; nudgeability (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/7/4107/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/7/4107/ (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:19:y:2022:i:7:p:4107-:d:783373

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 ().