Immediate backfire? Nudging sustainable food choices and psychological reactance

Nudging people towards sustainable diets can help mitigate agricultural emissions. Recent debate suggests “nudges” have heterogeneous treatment effects in the population, including some backfire effects. In this paper, we present experimental evidence on backfiring to a nudge, after pledge for food choices. The effect is driven by people’s short-term intention eat sustainably. Specifically, compare purely reflective tool, “think”, versus hybrid “nudge-think” “nudge+”, group of 611 participants United Kingdom. While think prompted first reflect green and then choose an appropriate nudge comply with their pledge, nudge+ altered proposing default who took pledge. both conditions, self-reported short- long-term intentions We do not find any unconditional participants. Yet nudging people, already intend sustainably short-term, they taken leads backfire. This fades out when control overall longer-term intentions. Our results suggest that policymakers should be deterred initial reactance behavioural policies if such are