NudgeME: Give me a push and I'll eat healthy!
Give me a nudge, or NudgeME, is the acronym of the research project of Dr. Nynke van der Laan's team at the Tilburg School of Humanities and Digital Sciences. Nudging is the stimulation of desired behavior by giving a nudge, without depriving people of their freedom of choice. The project investigates how personalized digital technologies - in this project a self-scanning app on your phone - can be used to make people make healthier food choices in the supermarket. The self-scanning app offers you healthier alternatives at the moment you choose unhealthy products. These alternatives are accompanied by personalized nudges.
New technologies can intervene in these choice processes at all kinds of moments, which was previously impossible. In addition, it is possible to personalize interventions according to the preferences or information processing style of the user. Suppose you have indicated that you would like to consume less sugar. You want to buy a soft drink and you grab a Coke from the shelf. After scanning the product with the self-scanning app, you see a pop up with an alternative product, namely Diet Coke. Because you have indicated that you are interested in products low in sugar, a nudge points out that this alternative matches your personal preferences.
Diabetes patients
The current project, led by Nynke van der Laan, is multidisciplinary: philosopher Bart Engelen, who looks at the ethical aspects, Nadine Bol and Sabita Soedamah-Muthu (Tilburg School of Social and Behavioral Sciences), are also working on it. It is a collaboration with the mobile app developer Nakko bv, which has developed the supermarket apps of several supermarket chains and is contributing to the project from this expertise. The NudgeME project started on June 1 and has a duration of two years. The collaborative project is co-financed with PPP grants made available by Health~Holland, Top Sector Life Sciences & Health, to stimulate public-private partnerships.
Van der Laan: 'In an earlier collaboration with Nakko bv, we investigated the effect of generic nudges on healthy choices in the supermarket. In this, everyone was shown the same nudge. In the current project we will investigate whether the effect of nudges is stronger if they are personalized. For example, someone who is interested in the amount of sugar will be shown a nudge that responds to this, while someone who is interested in organic products will be shown an appropriate nudge. A sugar-restricted diet is relevant for Type 2 Diabetes patients, a population that the research is focusing on in the second half of the project. In this project we also investigate the underlying mechanisms and the effect of transparency. We are doing this with lab studies and a study in the field.
Engelen: 'Marketing departments of companies have been trying to influence consumers for some time, often with the aim of making more profit. In this project we are trying to steer people to make choices that are good for their health.' He refutes the criticism that the government, or the supermarket company, is interfering so much with personal choices: 'The app is only for those who want it. Precisely with these personalized techniques you avoid that. No values are imposed on the consumer: you choose in which direction you want to be pushed by specifying your own preferences.'
Added value
Len Clabbers (Nakko bv): 'We see that the use of an app for weekly shopping continues to increase. Just like the attention supermarket chains pay to how they can support their customers who want to eat more consciously. For Nakko, this project is a great way to contribute something to consumers' lifestyles from the expertise we have.'
In the earlier and recently published study (Van der Laan & Orcholska, 2021), participants did grocery shopping in the supermarket using a self-scanning application. The participants were divided into four groups. In a first group of participants, when scanning a product that was unhealthy according to the Nutrition Centre guidelines, the app suggested a healthier alternative. In the second and third groups of participants, this suggestion was accompanied respectively by an additional textual (e.g., "This alternative contains less sugar") or visual nudge (a healthy heart logo) that emphasized the health value of the alternative. The fourth group - the control group - received no suggestions with alternative products. What did this show? A higher percentage of healthy products were chosen in the suggestion-only condition than in the control condition, nearly 38% (compared to 30% in the control condition). Across the group, the nudges had no added effect. The researchers expect that personalized nudges, studied in the NudgeME project, may have added value.
Sources
- Health~Holland project profile
- Van der Laan, L.N., Orcholska, O. 2022. Effects of digital Just-In-Time nudges on healthy food choice - A field experiment. Food Quality and Preference 98:104535.