title: Healthier by precommitment.
abstract: We tested a voluntary self-control commitment device to help grocery shoppers make healthier food purchases. Participants, who were already enrolled in a large-scale incentive program that discounts the price of eligible groceries by 25%, were offered the chance to put their discount on the line. Agreeing households pledged that they would increase their purchases of healthy food by 5 percentage points above their household baseline for each of 6 months. If they reached that goal, their discount was awarded as usual; otherwise, their discount was forfeited for that month. Thirty-six percent of households that were offered the binding commitment agreed; they subsequently showed an average 3.5-percentage-point increase in healthy grocery items purchased in each of the 6 months; households that declined the commitment and control-group households that were given a hypothetical option to precommit did not show such an increase. These results suggest that self-aware consumers will seize opportunities to create restrictive choice environments for themselves, even at some risk of financial loss.
authors.affiliation: 1Department of Marketing, A. B. Freeman School of Business, Tulane University.
authors.forename: Janet
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Schwartz
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Mochon
authors.forename: Lauren
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Wyper
authors.forename: Josiase
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Maroba
authors.forename: Deepak
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Patel
authors.forename: Dan
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Ariely
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D002755:Choice Behavior; D003258:Consumer Behavior / Q000191:economics*; D015438:Health Behavior; D006801:Humans; D012201:Reward
keywords: health; rewards; self-control