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Environment and Behavior
2014, Vol. 46(4) 453 –475
© 2012 SAGE Publications
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DOI: 10.1177/0013916512469099
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469099EABXXX10.1177/0013916512469099En
vironment and BehaviorCampbell-Arvai et al.
© 2012 SAGE Publications
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1University of Calgary, Alberta, Canada
2Decision Research, Eugene, OR, USA
3Michigan State University, East Lansing, USA
Corresponding Author:
Victoria Campbell-Arvai, Institute for Sustainable Energy, Environment, and Economy, EEEL
Building, University of Calgary, 2500 University Drive NW, Calgary, Alberta, Canada, T2N 2B3.
Email: campbelv@ucalgary.ca
Motivating Sustainable
Food Choices: The
Role of Nudges, Value
Orientation, and
Information Provision
Victoria Campbell-Arvai1, Joseph Arvai1,2,
and Linda Kalof3
Abstract
Small, everyday changes in people’s behavior can have significant positive
environmental impacts. To this end, the research reported here focused on
the role of an asymmetric intervention (a “nudge”) in motivating choices with
positive environmental outcomes. The context of this research was motivat-
ing proenvironmental food choice in campus dining halls. An experiment was
conducted in which a default menu, presenting only appealing or unappealing
meat-free meal options, was compared with more conventional menu configu-
rations. The use of a default menu increased the probability that study par-
ticipants would choose a meat-free meal option, and this probability increased
when appealing default meal options were provided. Neither the provision of
information on the menus nor the proenvironmental value orientation and
worldview of participants contributed to the logistic model. These results
suggest that default-based interventions can be important tools in motivating
proenvironmental behavior and can serve to complement information and
education efforts over the long term.
Article
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454 Environment and Behavior 46(4)
Keywords
biospheric values, default choice, new ecological paradigm, asymmetric
intervention, proenvironmental behavior
Simple changes in behavior by individuals and households can be an impor-
tant part of larger efforts to curtail greenhouse gas emissions or to make more
sustainable use of available resources and energy supplies (Abrahamse, Steg,
Vlek, & Rothengatter, 2005; Dietz, Gardner, Gilligan, Stern, & Vandenbergh,
2009). Ecoconscious driving and commuting habits, simple dietary changes,
as well as the adoption of recycling, and energy- and water-use conservation
measures (Barkenbus, 2008; Tukker & Jansen, 2006; Wilson, 2008) have all
been highlighted because of their potential positive environmental contribu-
tions. However, despite the positive impact that such changes can have, there
remains a need to expand the adoption of proenvironmental behaviors at the
individual and household level (Dietz et al., 2009).
The values held by an individual are thought to be an important motivating
force in the decision to engage (or to not engage) in proenvironmental behav-
iors (de Groot & Steg, 2008; Dietz, Fitzgerald, & Shwom, 2005). In addition,
studies of norm activation (Schwartz, 1977; Stern, 2000) have shown that
drawing individuals’ attention to the connection between certain behaviors
and salient values can, in effect, remind people about the need to engage in
behaviors that benefit the environment. For example, in a variety of experi-
mental situations, priming altruistic or biospheric values has been shown to
motivate people to make more environmentally responsible choices over
lower cost or more convenient options, that is, choosing television sets with
environmentally friendly attributes (Grankvist & Biel, 2001), or selecting
eco-labeled foods (Grankvist, Lekedal, & Marmendal, 2007). However, a
reliable connection between values and everyday proenvironmental behav-
iors may only exist for a relatively small subset of the population (Biel,
Dahlstrand, & Grankvist, 2005; Verplanken & Holland, 2002).
For this reason, many authors suggest turning to informational and educa-
tional campaigns to support proenvironmental behaviors—especially in the
short term (Schultz, Oskamp, & Mainieri, 1995; Vandenbergh, Dietz, &
Stern, 2011). The rationale here is that most people want to make the neces-
sary changes and only require information as to how to achieve these proen-
vironmental goals, be they with regard to recycling, energy conservation, or
changing food consumption habits (Gardner & Stern, 1996). Interest in eco-
labeling schemes (Loureiro & Lotade, 2005; Teisl, Rubin, & Noblet, 2008) is
reflective of this normative approach to behavior change.
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Campbell-Arvai et al. 455
However, research shows that the provision of information on its own can
be of limited utility in facilitating behavior change (Ratner et al., 2008; Stern,
1999). For example, habitual behaviors tend to be resistant to information
provision unless accompanied by a disruption of the environmental cues that
trigger them (Verplanken & Wood, 2006). Similarly, while information cam-
paigns have been shown to increase knowledge and intentions to perform a
behavior (Abrahamse et al., 2005), behavior change is typically seen only
when that information is accompanied by additional efforts at—for example—
providing feedback about or removing barriers to the behavior in question
(Gardner & Stern, 1996; Pichert & Katsikopoulos, 2008).
A relatively new, and potentially more effective, approach to motivating
proenvironmental behaviors involves interventions derived from behavioral
decision research. The inspiration behind these behavioral interventions
comes from the observation that in many circumstances people seldom make
decisions that are in their own best interest as defined by normative standards
(Kahneman, Slovic, & Tversky, 1982; Milkman, Rogers, & Bazerman, 2008).
Because decision making is easily hindered by time pressure and limits to
cognitive capacity (Shiv & Fedorikhin, 1999), people routinely rely on a
wide range of judgmental heuristics that—while useful in that they result in
faster decisions that may approach normative expectations—can also lead to
suboptimal decision making, for example, allowing the amount of food con-
sumed to be dictated by the size of the container, rather than knowledge of
appropriate portion size (Wansink, 2004). Compounding this problem is the
fact that these seemingly inconsequential decisions can have significant
cumulative negative impacts for the individual and others over the long term
(Ratner et al., 2008).
With these findings in mind, the gist of asymmetric interventions, for
example, nudges, is that judgmental heuristics can be exploited to yield posi-
tive, desirable outcomes; in other words, the environment in which people
make choices can be engineered such that when judgmental heuristics are
applied, the resulting choice reflects the most positive outcome across a set of
agreed-upon objectives. Much of the research devoted to this idea falls under
the umbrella of libertarian (or “soft”) paternalism, otherwise referred to as
asymmetric interventions (Thaler & Sunstein, 2003).
Asymmetric interventions can be defined by the following characteristics.
On one hand, they facilitate easier and more straightforward choices that,
from the standpoint of the decision maker, head in self-interested or desired
directions. At the same time, however, the asymmetric intervention does not
block or restrict decision makers from making other choices that may run
counter to their self-interest.
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456 Environment and Behavior 46(4)
One of the most promising forms of asymmetric intervention is the use of
defaults. Defaults are simply the option (or options) that people automati-
cally receive or see if they do not explicitly specify otherwise (Brown &
Krishna, 2004). They are thought to work because they exploit predictable
decision-making biases like loss aversion and the endowment effect
(Kahneman, Knetsch, & Thaler, 1991; Knetsch, 1996), which result in peo-
ple automatically imbuing default or status quo options with greater value
when compared with nondefaults. Likewise, defaults are effective because
they eliminate the need for people to confront trade-offs that, under even the
best of circumstances, people tend to find difficult (Lichtenstein, Gregory, &
Irwin, 2007).
These findings are complemented by a large body of research that has
examined the influence of the food environment on the amount of food eaten
(Hill & Peters, 1998; Wansink, 2004). More specifically, many food research-
ers have attributed the prevalence of overweight and obese individuals in
North America to the large portion sizes that are often found as the default
offering in restaurants and in grocery stores (Rozin, Kabnick, Pete, Fischler, &
Shields, 2003). These observations have also been supported experimentally,
for example, the consumption of popular snack items increased with increased
serving size (or serving utensil; Geier, Rozin, & Doros, 2006), and the amount
of restaurant entrée consumed was shown to be significantly and positively
related to portion size (Diliberti, Bordi, Conklin, Roe, & Rolls, 2004).
However, default interventions have also been successfully employed in a
variety of prosocial contexts, including the promotion of proenvironmental
behavior, healthy eating in fast-food restaurants, and organ donation. Offering
green (i.e., renewable) energy as the default option for electricity, for exam-
ple, resulted in a greater number of consumers remaining with the renewable
energy option compared with gray (nonrenewable) energy being offered as
the default (Pichert & Katsikopoulos, 2008). When low-calorie food choices
were presented as the default option on a menu in a metropolitan sandwich
shop, consumers were more likely to choose them than when higher calorie
options were presented (Downs, Loewenstein, & Wisdom, 2009). Likewise,
high opt-in rates for organ donation programs (more than 90% in most cases)
appear to be related to the fact that presumed consent is the default condition;
in other words, an individual is assumed to be an organ donor unless he or she
specifies otherwise (Johnson & Goldstein, 2003).
This previous research on asymmetric interventions has focused on defaults
that are either easy to choose because of their obvious appeal, for example, in
the case of “healthy” fast food (Downs et al., 2009), or because they fit neatly
with salient values, for example, organ donation (Johnson & Goldstein, 2003),
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Campbell-Arvai et al. 457
or saving for retirement (Thaler & Benartzi, 2004). However, many of the
choices we face that have long-term benefits for our own health or the health
of our environment may not always have obvious immediate appeal or desir-
ability (Milkman et al., 2008), for example, choosing a meal of lentils versus
a hamburger and french fries, or taking public transit to work versus a sporty,
single-occupancy vehicle. Thus, we also sought to determine the extent to
which the relative immediate appeal of the default options (as measured by
participants’ affective response to these options) would inhibit or enhance the
efficacy of the default intervention.
More specifically, our research focused on the effectiveness of asymmet-
ric interventions, namely, defaults, to facilitate a proenvironmental behavior
in a real-world setting. In designing this research, we sought to address three
research questions (RQs). First, in naturalistic settings, how well do behav-
ioral interventions like nudges perform when compared with straightforward
information provision? Related, do defaults coupled with information provi-
sion outperform either approach applied on its own? Second, does the relative
appeal of the default hinder or enhance its influence on choice? In other
words, when offered unappealing defaults, will people reject the status quo
offering and make the effort to seek out other options? And, third, how do
decision makers’ value orientation and worldview interact with both informa-
tion provision and the use of asymmetric interventions? RQs 1 and 2 were
addressed via an experiment; RQ 3 was addressed by evaluating the results
from the experiment in light of covariates from an accompanying survey.
Method
Study Context
This study was conducted on the campus of a large university in the
Midwestern United States, where a popular campus environmental sustain-
ability program has recently been enacted. The overarching goal of this pro-
gram is to reduce the university’s environmental footprint, a key component
of which is to encourage more sustainable food choices in campus dining
facilities. Indeed, universities are increasingly looking to their food procure-
ment and delivery practices as a way to advance sustainability goals (Barlett,
2011). Food consumption patterns are also changing at the broader societal
level in response to environmental and health concerns (Nie & Zepeda, 2011).
During the design of this research, and with “more sustainable” food
choices as a focal point for discussions, a series of focus groups and inter-
views (conducted by the first author and involving students and
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458 Environment and Behavior 46(4)
administrators of the university’s Division of Residential and Hospitality
Services) were conducted. These focus groups and interviews identified a
greater emphasis by consumers and food service providers on meat-free meal
options as a way to achieve both environmental and health-related objectives
on campus. This is a viewpoint that is also endorsed in the literature; reduced
meat consumption is widely recognized as an effective means of reducing the
environmental footprint of the food system when considering all aspects of
the production chain (e.g., see Garnett, 2011; Tukker & Jansen, 2006). For
these reasons, finding ways to encouraging meat-free food choices was
selected as the focus of this study.
The study took place in two phases. In Phase 1, prior to conducting our
default menu study, we used a short survey to establish the relative appeal of
the meat-free meal options appearing on the experimental menus. In Phase 2,
we visited randomly selected campus dining halls to deploy our experimental
menus.
Phase 1: Establishing Appealing and
Unappealing Menu Items
To establish the relative appeal of the meat-free default food options appear-
ing on our experimental menus, we first conducted an evaluation of the 22
vegetarian and vegan items commonly offered in campus dining halls. A
random sample (n = 26) of all undergraduate students possessing campus
meal plans was invited to participate in this short study.
Study participants were provided a booklet containing the titles and writ-
ten descriptions of the 22 vegetarian and vegan meals, presented in random
order. Participants were instructed to evaluate the affective appeal of these
meat-free food options using a series of bipolar word pairs based on the
PANAS (Positive and Negative Affect Schedule) scales (Watson, Clark, &
Tellegen, 1988); these word pairs were as follows: repelled versus attracted,
annoyed versus pleased, boring versus exciting, and desirable versus unde-
sirable. A 7-point semantic differential scale (–3 to +3), with these opposite
words at either end of the scale, was used to capture participants’ evaluation
of the meat-free food options. Negative scores (–1 to –3) indicated a negative
evaluation (ranging from, for example, “somewhat repelled” to “very
repelled”) and positive scores (1-3) represented a positive evaluation (rang-
ing from, for example, “somewhat attracted” to “very attracted”); with 0 as a
neutral midpoint. Participants in this study were asked to read the descrip-
tions and instructions carefully, and base their evaluations on their initial
reaction to each meal description. Once finished, participants were thanked
and provided with a US$20 payment for their participation.
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Campbell-Arvai et al. 459
The five menu options that received the highest semantic differential scores
(M = 1.4, SD = 0.13) reflecting a more positive evaluation by study participants
were classified as appealing meat-free options (e.g., pasta with Provençal veg-
etables or three-cheese lasagna). The five most negatively evaluated menu
options (M = –0.43, SD = 0.15) were classified as the unappealing meat-free
options (e.g., vegan calzone or a vegetarian sloppy joe sandwich). These posi-
tively and negatively evaluated menu options were then used in the two versions
(“appealing” and “unappealing”) of our experimental menus.
Phase 2: Deploying the Experimental Menus
Randomly selected dining facilities on campus were visited over a 2-week
period. Participants, who were undergraduate students living on campus, were
intercepted as they arrived for lunch or dinner and were invited to take part in
the experiment under the pretence of completing a survey about their food
preferences. Participants who agreed to take part in the study were led to a
small conference room within the dining facility and briefed about the survey.
It was explained to participants that the survey would take approximately 30
min and that they would have the opportunity to make a meal selection (for
their lunch or dinner) from a menu prior to their beginning the survey.
The menu choice experiment was composed of two stages. In the initial
stage of the experiment, participants were given approximately 5 min to con-
sult one of eight randomly assigned menus (see below). Participants were
instructed to carefully read and review the menu options, and make a selec-
tion as if they were ordering their actual lunch or dinner. In reality, however,
participants did not receive a food item. Once their menu selections had been
recorded, participants continued with the second stage of the study, in which
all participants completed the same survey. When participants had completed
the survey, they were thanked, debriefed as to the objectives behind the
research, and provided with $20 for their participation.
Experimental design. A 2 × 2 × 2 between-subjects factorial design was
used in this menu choice experiment, varying (a) the presentation of meat-
free menu items in either a default or nondefault position, (b) the presence or
absence of information about the environmental benefits of reducing meat
consumption, and (c) the attractiveness—appealing or unappealing—of the
meat-free options (Figure 1).
In the DEFAULT treatment, participants received at their table a menu
listing only five meat-free options. A second version of this menu (DEFAULT +
INFORMATION) was also created where the five meat-free options were
accompanied by a stylized leaf symbol1 ()that directed participants to read
the following text printed at the bottom of the menu:
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460 Environment and Behavior 46(4)
This symbol on the menu identifies a meat-free meal option. Recent
scientific studies have suggested that consuming less meat can help to
reduce our environmental impact.
All participants who received one of these default menus (DEFAULT or
DEFAULT + INFORMATION) were informed—verbally and in writing on
the menu—that they could also consult a second menu that was posted on the
wall approximately 3.5 m away from their table if they wished to select a
food option that was different from the ones on the default menu. This posted
menu offered an array of popular nonvegetarian dining hall dishes (e.g.,
cheeseburger and fries, grilled salmon with vegetables), and the configura-
tion was designed to approximate what is encountered in the multiple food
station setup of a typical campus dining hall.
In a third version of the menu, INFORMATION ONLY, the meat-free
menu options from the default menu were presented on the same menu as the
items from the posted menu. However, in this nondefault version of the menu,
meat-free options were differentiated by the same stylized leaf symbol ()
and accompanying text as with the DEFAULT + INFORMATION version. In
the fourth menu version, labeled CONTROL, the five meat-free menu options
were presented on the same menu as items from the posted menu; but, in this
case, leaf symbol and accompanying text were not present, and thus the meat-
free options were not differentiated from those menu items containing meat.
Finally, two sets of each of the four menu versions (DEFAULT, DEFAULT
+ INFORMATION, INFORMATION ONLY, and CONTROL) were used to
create a total of eight experimental treatments; one set used only positively
Appealing Meat-Free Menu Options Unappealing Meat-Free Menu Options
Information Provided Information Provided
Yes No Yes No
Presence
of Default
Yes
Default
+
Information
Default
Default
+
Information
Default Yes
Presence
of Default
No Information
Only Control Information
Only Control No
Figure 1. 2 (default) x 2 (information) x 2 (appeal) factorial design.
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Campbell-Arvai et al. 461
evaluated meat-free menu options as the default, whereas the other set used
only negatively evaluated meat-free options as the default. The meal options
containing meat (found on both the posted menu and on the INFORMATION
ONLY and CONTROL menus) were the same for all versions.
Survey design. To address RQ 3, all participants received an identical sur-
vey, regardless of which experimental treatment they were assigned to. The
survey consisted of questions that gathered information about participants’
(a) gender (female or male), (b) their food consumption habits (vegetarian,
vegan, or omnivore), (c) their value orientation, and (d) their worldview; this
information was gathered only after participants had made their menu selec-
tion. The survey took approximately 15 min to complete and was pilot tested
for clarity with a small group (10) of undergraduate students prior to com-
mencing the experimental menu study.
Participants’ value orientation was determined using a modified version of
the Schwartz Value Orientation Survey (Schwartz, 1996); the modification
entailed adding items to measure the Biospheric Value Orientation (BVO) of
participants, that is, the inclusion of statements relating to unity with nature,
respecting the environment, and protecting the earth (de Groot & Steg, 2008;
Stern, Dietz, & Guagnano, 1998). Participants were instructed to evaluate
each of the survey items on a 7-point Likert-type scale (ranging from 1 = not
important to me to 7 = extremely important to me), with higher scores for the
BVO statements described above reflecting a more proenvironmental value
orientation.
The extent to which participants displayed proenvironmental beliefs was
determined using the established 15-item New Ecological Paradigm (NEP)
scale (Dunlap, Van Liere, Mertig, & Jones, 2000). Participants rated each of
the 15 NEP scale statements on a 5-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1
(strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree), with 3 being unsure, with even
numbered statements reverse scored prior to calculating a mean score for
each participant. Higher mean NEP scores are thought to reflect more proen-
vironmental beliefs or worldview.
Data analysis. Data from the experiment were analyzed using binary logis-
tic regression, with the experimental variables (the presence or absence of a
default, the presence or absence of information, and the appeal of the meat-
free options) and covariates from the survey (BVO score, NEP score, and
gender) examined as predictors of choice of a meat-free menu item. The
dependent variable was a binary response variable, that is, was a meat-free
meal option chosen (yes or no). All experimental variables were also coded as
binary categorical variables (default menu employed or not employed, infor-
mation provided or not provided, and the use of appealing or unappealing
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462 Environment and Behavior 46(4)
default choices) as well as the survey covariate for gender (female or male).
The BVO and NEP scores were included as continuous covariates, with
higher numbers indicating a more proenvironmental value orientation and
worldview, respectively.
Participants. A total of 320 participants took part in this study, with an equal
number (40) randomly allocated to each of the eight experimental menu treat-
ments. Of these, one participant was excluded for not following instructions.
Results
Descriptive Statistics
The gender distribution of participants was similar to that found for the under-
graduate population at the time of the experiment. Of those participants who
reported their gender, 52.7% were female (n = 168) and 46.4% were male
(n = 148), with three individuals not reporting. In terms of self-reported food
consumption habits, most participants categorized themselves as omnivores
(96.9%), with very few self-identifying as either vegetarian (2.8%) or vegan
(0.3%). We noted that only females reported being vegan or vegetarian.
The average BVO score was 4.3 (SD = 1.4, range = 1.0-7.0); Cronbach’s
alpha for the BVO score was calculated (α = .83) and indicated acceptable
reliability for inclusion in the logistic regression analysis. The average NEP
score was 3.5 (SD = .55, range = 1.6-4.8), which is similar to what has been
found in other studies (Clark, Kotchen, & Moore, 2003). Cronbach’s alpha
for this score (α = .79) also indicated acceptable reliability for inclusion in the
logistic regression analysis.
Among those participants receiving appealing meat-free menu items,
89.7% of study participants in the DEFAULT menu treatment chose a
meat-free meal. The proportion of participants choosing a meat-free menu
option increased to 92.5% in the DEFAULT + INFORMATION menu
treatment. In contrast, among those participants receiving the unappealing
meat-free menu options, only 73.2% of participants in the DEFAULT
menu treatment chose a meat-free meal; in the DEFAULT + INFORMATION
menu treatment, however, fewer participants (68.4%) chose a meat-free
option (Figure 2).
For the INFORMATION ONLY and CONTROL menu treatments, 47.5%
and 40% of participants, respectively, chose the vegetarian meal when offered
appealing meat-free menu items, with a much smaller proportion of partici-
pants (20% and 7.5% of participants, respectively) choosing a meat-free meal
when offered only unappealing meat-free menu options (Figure 2).
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Campbell-Arvai et al. 463
Regression Analysis
The omnibus logistic regression model (Table 1) revealed a main effect of
the default menu configuration, odds ratio (OR) = 4.10, p < .001. In other
words, providing meat-free meal options as the default increased the proba-
bility that participants would choose a meat-free meal compared with those
who received a nondefault menu and controlling for all other variables. The
appeal of the menu items was also a significant predictor of choice (OR =
2.05, p < .001), with the provision of appealing meat-free items increasing
the probability of selecting a meat-free menu option compared with the
unappealing items (and controlling for all other variables). These effects
remained significant even with the addition of interaction terms and survey
variables to the model.
The presence of information on the menu (represented by the stylized leaf
symbol and accompanying text) was not a significant predictor of choice of a
meat-free menu item, OR = 1.09, p = .534. Similarly, none of the two-way
interaction terms were a significant addition to the regression model.
In terms of the survey variables, neither an individual’s NEP score nor his
or her BVO score significantly contributed to predicting choice of a vegetar-
ian meal, OR = 1.28, p = .387 and OR = 1.09, p = .437, respectively. Only
0
25
50
75
100
Default Default +
Information
Information
Only
Control
(%)
Appealing Meat-Free Options
Unapealing Meat-Free Options
Figure 2. Percentage of participants choosing a meat-free menu option.
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464 Environment and Behavior 46(4)
gender was a significant additional predictor of choice, with female partici-
pants more likely to choose a meat-free menu item compared with male stu-
dents, OR = 0.49, p = .02.
We considered the possibility that the lack of an association between
either participants’ NEP or BVO score, and their choice of meat-free meal
options may be due to the fact that these more abstract variables may not have
had a direct effect on individual food-choice decisions. To test for this, we
conducted a post hoc logistic regression analysis to measure the effect of
these variables on self-reported vegetarianism (from the survey). Specifically,
all participants (n = 10) who indicated they were either vegetarian or vegan
were coded as “1” whereas all other participants (n = 309) were coded at “0.”
Only the NEP score was a significant predictor of self-reported vegetarian-
ism, Model χ2 = 8.83, df = 2, OR = 6.92, p = .012.
When self-reported vegetarianism was added to the larger logistic regres-
sion model, gender was no longer a significant predictor of a meat-free meal
choice, Model χ2 = 142.5, df = 9, OR = 0.566, p = .064. As would be expected,
Table 1. Results From the Logistic Regression for Participants’ Choice of
Vegetarian Menu Options, Showing Values for Regression Coefficients (B) and
Standard Errors (SE), as Well as Odds Ratios (OR) With Their Accompanying 95%
Confidence Intervals (CIs).
Variable Coefficient SE OR 95% CI
Constant 0.635 0.976
Default 1.411*** 0.163 4.1 [2.98, 5.65]
Information 0.089 0.144 1.09 [0.83, 1.45]
Appeal 0.716*** 0.156 2.05 [1.51, 2.78]
Two-way interaction terms
Default × Information 0.106 0.144 0.9 [0.68, 1.19]
Default × Appeal 0.009 0.156 0.99 [0.73, 1.35]
Covariates from Survey
BVO Score 0.085 0.11 1.09 [0.88, 1.35]
NEP Score 0.244 0.282 1.28 [0.73, 2.22]
Gender 0.710* 0.311 0.49 [0.27, 0.90]
N319
Model 2, df 129.862, 8
–2 log likelihood 304.835
Nagelkerke R2.451
*p < .05.***p < .001.
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Campbell-Arvai et al. 465
those who self-identified as vegetarian or vegan were more likely to choose a
vegetarian meal compared with those who self-identified as omnivores,
OR = 28.6, p = .004.
Discussion
This experiment was designed to study alternative menu presentations,
with and without default-based nudges, in the kind of busy, time-limited,
and distracting environment that accompanies many decisions about food.
The results show that the default menu configuration had a significant
influence on participants’ choice of a meat-free menu option. In terms of
applying these findings to the design of dining halls and cafeterias, we
believe that food service managers can still offer a wide variety of food
choices to students and other clients, that is, by not eliminating options.
However, they can provide easier access to environmentally sustainable or
healthier food options while placing unhealthier or less environmentally
“friendly” food options in a slightly less convenient position, all without
significantly increasing the transaction costs associated with making the
nondefault choice.
To this end, work by Wansink and colleagues (Just & Wansink, 2009) has
pointed to a number of simple changes to the physical layout of cafeterias
(and the layout of food within the cafeteria) that can be employed to promote
healthier eating among students, for example, by moving the salad bar to a
more obvious and convenient location. Likewise, our discussions with the
sponsors of this research as we designed the experiment focused on the pos-
sibility of establishing a relatively more convenient “express table service”
(as in a restaurant) for healthy or environmentally friendly food options while
providing relatively less convenient and more conventional cafeteria service
lines in the same dining facility for other, less healthy or environmentally
“unfriendly,” options.
Overall, those individuals who were assigned a default menu—both with
information and without—were more likely to choose a meat-free menu item
than those who did not receive a default menu. Our results are in line with
other findings related to asymmetric interventions in other contextual
domains (Downs et al., 2009; Johnson & Goldstein, 2003; Pichert &
Katsikopoulos, 2008) and support the assertion that defaults, as well as other
types of asymmetric interventions, are a powerful tool for motivating behav-
ior. A common thread across these studies from an environmental sustain-
ability standpoint is that defaults may counter the propensity to make choices
that overweight short-term benefits (e.g., for taste or to satisfy a habit) at the
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466 Environment and Behavior 46(4)
expense of options that are accompanied by longer term consequences (e.g.,
related to long-range environmental or human health).
Previous research suggests that defaults can motivate behavior via a num-
ber of mechanisms. Johnson and Goldstein (2003) and Pichert and
Katsikopoulos (2008), for example, suggest that defaults work because they
represent an implied endorsement from those presenting the options, and for
this reason alone may be viewed more favorably than the nondefault options.
In the case of our study, the default menu choices in this experiment may
have been seen as a recommended meal option from dining hall managers;
this, in turn, may have been reinforced further by the information presented
in the DEFAULT + INFORMATION treatments.
Another possible explanation is that participants may stick with a default
option because of loss aversion and status quo bias (Kahneman et al., 1991).
Given the timing of our study, participants were likely hungry and under time
pressure; as a result, the default options presented to them—the absence of
any point of comparison as to the “goodness” or “badness” of the options—
may simply have provided a quick and convenient choice in that it required
minimal physical or mental effort on participants’ part.
Our research also shows that—as might be expected—the attractiveness
of menu items (in a default position or otherwise) has a significant influence
on food choice; with unappealing menu options being selected less frequently
than appealing ones. However, it is important to point out that there was no
statistically significant interaction between the presence of a default and the
attractiveness of menu options. Thus, the efficacy of a default-based menu
configuration in terms of motivating meat-free meal choices seemed to trump
the attractiveness of those menu options.
The provision of information on the menus, albeit in simplified but real-
istic terms (for what is typically encountered on a menu), did not have a
significant influence on an individual’s choice of a meat-free menu option.
Although this kind of information may be helpful in motivating behavior
change over a longer time scale, that is, through increasing awareness of the
environmental consequences of a particular action, or identifying a new
way to minimize one’s environmental impact (Stern, Dietz, Kalof, &
Guagnano, 1995), particularly for those individuals who hold envirocentric
values (Stern & Dietz, 1994), it appears to be less effective at motivating
behavior change at the scale of individual, real-time choices. As other stud-
ies have also shown, what we learn about options in terms of their links to
environmental sustainability can be overridden by the immediate character-
istics of the context in which decisions are made. In other words, it is com-
mon for immediate or visceral factors to dominate decisions, especially
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Campbell-Arvai et al. 467
when time pressure and distractions further conspire to prevent more effort-
ful deliberation and consideration of information (Ariely & Loewenstein,
2006; Shiv & Fedorikhin, 1999).
Indeed, other studies have come to similar conclusions about the effective-
ness of providing health-related information to motivate healthier food
choices (Downs et al., 2009; Just & Payne, 2009). Despite the fact that adopt-
ing a healthier lifestyle can have direct benefits to the individual (as opposed
to the more indirect or societal-level benefits of acting in an environmentally
beneficial manner), the same shortcuts, for example, an overreliance on
affective cues, can prevent people from acting on health-related recommen-
dations (Milkman et al., 2008).
In contrast to the present study, however, many other researchers have
noted both direct and indirect connections between proenvironmental values
or worldview and a variety of proenvironmental behaviors, including vege-
tarianism (de Groot & Steg, 2008; Dietz, Frisch, Kalof, Stern, & Guagnano,
1995; Verplanken & Holland, 2002). In this particular study, neither an indi-
vidual’s NEP score, nor his or her BVO score was directly associated with the
selection of a meat-free menu option; we can only speculate as to why.
On one hand, related qualitative research suggested that many students
had not yet made a strong connection between food choices and a range of
environmental considerations. If individuals do not associate options such as
meat consumption (or attributes such as food miles, intensive processing,
etc.) with such issues as habitat loss, air and water pollution, soil erosion, or
climate change, then it is unlikely that any envirocentric values or worldview
will come into play in these kinds of decisions.
On the other hand, it may simply be more difficult than many assume to
establish a direct connection between more abstract values or worldview and
individual decisions (Stern, 1999). In the same way that information may be
overwhelmed by situational factors (as described above), more abstract moti-
vations such as an envirocentric worldview or a universalistic value orienta-
tion may only have a weak influence on decisions otherwise dominated by an
array of judgmental heuristics and habits, which themselves can be exacer-
bated by hunger and time pressure. At best, then, values and worldview can
be thought of as only playing a more indirect and supporting role in decision
making. Support for this assertion comes from the fact that an individual’s
NEP score was an important predictor of self-reported vegetarianism, which
in turn had a significant influence on the probability that these participants
would select a meat-free menu option in the experiment (whereas higher NEP
scores among study participants was not directly correlated with the proba-
bility that a meat-free meal would be chosen).
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468 Environment and Behavior 46(4)
Finally, gender has traditionally been associated with the decision to
eschew meat, with females more likely to adopt a vegetarian lifestyle than
males (Janda & Trocchia, 2001; Kalof, Dietz, Stern, & Guagnano, 1999). Our
results support this prior work; when accounting for all other predictors, male
participants were not as likely as female participants to choose a meat-free
meal option (though the probability of selecting a meat-free option was still
higher in the treatments involving default menus). Although females may be
more accepting of meat-free meal offerings for a variety of reasons—for
example, health, sensory, ethical, or environmental concerns (Fox & Ward,
2008; Twigg, 1983)—this pattern may also be due to the fact that males are
more likely to view a meal as incomplete if it lacks meat (Kubberod, Ueland,
Tronstad, & Risvik, 2002; Sobal, 2005) and thus may be much less willing
than females to accept a meat-free meal option, even if it is the more conve-
nient choice.
Study Limitations and Future Research
Despite these positive results (viewed from the standpoint of asymmetric
interventions), some questions and concerns remain. For example, the extent
to which a set of defaults can yield sustained behavior change over time is
unclear. It is almost certain that, by not changing the composition of default
options, more and more decision makers are likely to defect toward other
options over time (e.g., out of boredom with a static set of defaults). A steady
influx of new decision makers into an environment involving static defaults
would likely alleviate (though perhaps not eliminate) this problem, as would
a regular rotation of the default options (which, in an expanded study based
on our experimental design, would be relatively easy).
The study design may also be critiqued for not providing actual food
choices and thus lacking any real consequences for—or opportunities to learn
from—a less-than-optimal choice. However, we believe that the timing (lunch
and dinner hour), location (campus dining halls), and instructions to partici-
pants (to make a menu selection as if they were ordering their actual lunch or
dinner) helped to contribute to the realism of the choice. The fact that more
participants consulted the posted menu when offered only unappealing meat-
free default menu options is supportive of this assertion. Nonetheless, a sen-
sible follow-up study would be to conduct the experiment so that students
could both eat and evaluate the food item they had chosen from the experi-
mental menus. This postchoice evaluation would then offer further insight into
how likely it would be that the participants would make the same choice when
presented with similar kinds of default options in the future.
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Campbell-Arvai et al. 469
Along similar lines, the efficacy of default interventions could be studied
over a longer time frame, with the idea that if individuals are unsatisfied with
their default choices, then they will be less likely to accept this more conve-
nient option in the future and, thus the efficacy of the default will decline over
time) (Downs et al., 2009).
We suggest also that the information presented to participants may have
been insufficiently detailed to motivate behavior change in the manner sug-
gested by others (Vandenbergh et al., 2011). As indicated above, we elected
to present information about menu offerings in a manner that was consistent
with what might appear on an actual restaurant menu. However, participants
may have been better able to make a connection between vegetarian choices
and sustainability concerns if the information provided on the menu had been
tailored to meet the specific needs and objectives of students, that is, via a
more concerted social marketing approach (Abrahamse, Steg, Vlek, &
Rothengatter, 2007; Steg & Vlek, 2009).
The information provided on the menus could have also benefitted from a
reference to descriptive norms related to sustainability. Work on social norms
suggests that reference to injunctive norms—what people ought to do—in
information campaigns can be overwhelmed by descriptive norms—what
people are actually doing (Cialdini, 2003). Thus, reference to descriptive
norms may be a more effective way to motivate proenvironmental (and other)
behaviors using information.
Building on work carried out by Goldstein, Cialdini, and Griskevicus
(2008) on motivating proenvironmental behavior among hotel guests, it
would be valuable (in our opinion) to repeat a version of this experiment to
test the effectiveness of norms-based messages in dining halls (e.g., on sig-
nage or on menus). Such norms-based messages might reference the food
choices made by other students toward the achievement of environment-
related goals; for example,
Over the course of the school year so far, 85% of students visiting this
dining hall selected a meat-free menu option as a more environmen-
tally sustainable food choice. Join your fellow students in helping to
protect the environment by going meat-free today.
Finally, there is also the seemingly ever-present (in the domain of asym-
metric interventions) concern that default options are underhanded and
unfairly constrain choices. Arguments at the other extreme also appear from
time to time; namely that decision makers have the ability to optimize across
their values, objectives, and concerns rendering asymmetric interventions
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470 Environment and Behavior 46(4)
unnecessary. It is true that asymmetric interventions make it less easy or con-
venient to choose certain alternatives. But, they do not forbid decision mak-
ers from choosing other alternatives in the strictest sense. Nevertheless,
concerns about freedom of choice and the autonomy of decision makers per-
sist (Smith, Goldstein, & Johnson, 2008).
However, we side with Thaler and Sunstein (2003, 2008) who assert that
our choices are heavily influenced by decision context, whether we like, or
are aware of it or not. Related, marketers and retailers have been particularly
adroit at exploiting this phenomenon to satisfy their own (vs. consumers’)
objectives. Therefore, the use of defaults and other asymmetric interventions
to advance agreed-upon individual and societal goals, that is, the university’s
campus sustainability goals in the case of this study, should be viewed as one
of many useful tools for helping decision makers to improve their health,
welfare, and happiness (and that of the environment—natural and built—
around them). The key safeguards, in our view, are to be transparent when we
make a decision to deploy an asymmetric intervention, ensure that decision
makers always have easy access to—and the freedom to choose among—
alternatives other than those presented in the default position, and monitor
the acceptance and effectiveness of interventions over time.
Acknowledgments
The authors wish to acknowledge the following individuals for their help with this
research and with the preparation of this manuscript: Stan Kaplowitz, Diane Barker,
Vennie Gore, Bruce Haskell, Guy Procopio, Laurie Thorp, Caroline Keson, Emily
Snoek, Katherine Wright, and two anonymous reviewers.
Authors’ Note
Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this pub-
lication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the
sponsor.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research,
authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research,
authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was supported by
Michigan State University’s Office of the Vice President for Finance and Operations.
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Campbell-Arvai et al. 471
Note
1. This symbol, and the accompanying text, was modeled after the Ocean Wise
Sustainable Seafood campaign (http://www.oceanwisecanada.org/).
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Author Biographies
Victoria Campbell-Arvai is a Research Associate in the Institute for Sustainable
Energy, Environment, and Economy at the University of Calgary. Her research inter-
ests include proenvironmental knowledge and attitudes, food systems, and motivating
proenvironmental behavior.
Joseph Arvai is the Svare Chair in Applied Decision Research in the Institute for
Sustainable Energy, Environment, and Economy at the University of Calgary. He
works on judgment and decision-making, with a focus on improving the quality of
choices made by individuals and groups.
Linda Kalof is a Professor of Sociology and Director of Michigan State University’s
interdisciplinary graduate specialization in Animal Studies: Social Science and
Humanities Perspectives. Her primary research focus is on the cultural representa-
tions of humans and other animals, and the links between culture and nature.
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