Job Market Talk “A Multiple Goal Perspective on Eating Behavior: Decreasing Conflict Between Healthy Eating and an Enjoyable Eating Experience”

We introduce a simple solution to help consumers manage choices between healthy and unhealthy food options: vice-virtue bundles. Vice-virtue bundles are item aggregates with varying proportions of both vice and virtue, holding overall quantity constant. Four studies compare choice and perceptions of differently composed vice-virtue bundles relative to one another and to pure vice and pure virtue options. Although multiple consumer segments can be identified, results suggest that people overall tend to prefer vice-virtue bundles with small (1⁄4) to medium (1⁄2) proportions of vice rather than large (3⁄4) proportions of vice. Moreover, people generally rate vice-virtue bundles with small vice proportions as healthier but similarly tasty as bundles with larger vice proportions. For most individuals, choice patterns are different from those predicted by variety-seeking accounts alone. Instead, these findings provide evidence of asymmetric effectiveness of small vice and virtue proportions at addressing taste and health goals, respectively. Paper 2: Eat, Drink, and Be Merry? Decreasing Conflict Between Healthy Eating and Affiliation Abstract: Whereas much past research has focused on the conflict between a health goal and a taste goal, we focus on the conflict between a health goal and a social goal. Specifically, we examined how choosing a healthier food can conflict with affiliation with a dining companion who has chosen a less healthy food and how this conflict can be decreased so that choosing healthier food does not conflict with affiliation. In eight studies, we consider dyads of consumers making sequential ordering choices, wherein the first consumer to order (“the indulging consumer”) chooses an unhealthy option and the second consumer to order (“the responding consumer”) faces a choice between an unhealthy option and a healthy option. The first set of studies (Studies 1-3) show that an affiliation goal often leads the responding consumer to choose an unhealthy option, thereby matching the indulging consumer on healthiness. The second set of studies show that choosing an unhealthy option indeed leads to greater affiliation with the indulging consumer (Study 4). Importantly, however, responding consumers can use strategies to decrease this conflict: they can offer to share a healthy choice for variety’s sake (Study 5) or attribute a healthy choice to a health issue (Study 6) and be liked as much as if they had made an unhealthy choice. Whereas much past research has focused on the conflict between a health goal and a taste goal, we focus on the conflict between a health goal and a social goal. Specifically, we examined how choosing a healthier food can conflict with affiliation with a dining companion who has chosen a less healthy food and how this conflict can be decreased so that choosing healthier food does not conflict with affiliation. In eight studies, we consider dyads of consumers making sequential ordering choices, wherein the first consumer to order (“the indulging consumer”) chooses an unhealthy option and the second consumer to order (“the responding consumer”) faces a choice between an unhealthy option and a healthy option. The first set of studies (Studies 1-3) show that an affiliation goal often leads the responding consumer to choose an unhealthy option, thereby matching the indulging consumer on healthiness. The second set of studies show that choosing an unhealthy option indeed leads to greater affiliation with the indulging consumer (Study 4). Importantly, however, responding consumers can use strategies to decrease this conflict: they can offer to share a healthy choice for variety’s sake (Study 5) or attribute a healthy choice to a health issue (Study 6) and be liked as much as if they had made an unhealthy choice. MANAGEMENT SCIENCE Vol. 61, No. 1, January 2015, pp. 204–228 ISSN 0025-1909 (print) ISSN 1526-5501 (online) http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2014.2053 ©2015 INFORMS