| By: |
Noémi Berlin (EconomiX - EconomiX - UPN - Université Paris Nanterre - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique);
Tarek Jaber-Lopez (IPP - Instituto de politicas y Bienes Publicos - Centrode Ciencias Humanas y Sociales, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas);
Moustapha Sarr (CNRS, EconomiX, Université Paris Nanterre, 92001 Nanterre) |
| Abstract: |
In a lab-in-the-field experiment, we investigate the influence of social norms
on 300 parents' beliefs regarding the nutritional quality of food items and
their subsequent food choices. We use a 3 × 2 between-subject experimental
design where we vary two factors: 1-the social norm provided to parents: a
descriptive norm (what other parents choose) vs. an injunctive norm (what
other parents approve of), and 2-the recipient of the food decisions made by
parents: their own child vs. an unknown child. Parents participate in a
two-stage process. In the first stage, we elicit their beliefs regarding the
nutritional quality of various food items and ask them to make a food basket
without specific information. In the second stage, based on their assigned
treatment, they receive specific information and repeat the belief elicitation
and the food basket selection tasks. We find that only the descriptive norm
significantly reduces parents' overestimation rate of items' nutritional
quality. Injunctive norm significantly improves the nutritional quality of
both, the parent's and child's baskets. Descriptive norm significantly
improves the nutritional quality of child's baskets only when parents are
choosing for unknown child. |
| Keywords: |
child, parent, food beliefs, food choices, information provision, Social norms |
| Date: |
2025 |
| URL: |
https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-05330418 |