Abstract
When making daily decisions, consumers often face intertemporal choices, which involve making decisions at various points in time by weighing immediate and future benefits. Based on previous studies in monetary domain, people prefer sooner and smaller options in immediate decision over longer and larger options in future decision. This preference inconsistency was also verified in food domain, health domain, and in the financial domain. People prefer unhealthy food in the short-term while prefer healthy food in the long-term. Therefore, we tried to see if we can nudge people to make healthy food decisions more easily, by reducing their cognitive costs of resisting immediate temptations.
Nudges have been a popular choice architecture tool in changing behavior without restricting choices. The aim of this series of studies was to promote better lifestyles for college students, and to implement efficient and effective ways of helping students making better decisions.
We have completed three nudge experiments on Tsinghua University campus, which include 1) nudge on healthier food consumption; 2) nudge to reduce energy consumption; 3) nudge to wear mask on smoggy days. Various nudge methods have been implemented and compared. We found the influence of nudge in intertemporal choice under diet, health, and pro-environment domains. Different nudge methods gave helpful suggestions for better policy making.