Consumers' Emotional Reaction to Sustainability Cue

Study Overview
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Brief Summary
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This will be a randomized control trial (RCT) to examine whether the three priming interventions (health priming, environmental sustainability priming, and co-benefits priming) work to change consumers' sustainable food choice through their effects on changing consumers' emotional reaction when seeing foods with cues of environmental sustainability, which will be indicated by measuring consumers' facial expression, eye movement and pupil dilation.

Official Title
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Can we Prime Sustainable Food Choice? A Mix-methods Study

Conditions
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Sustainable Food Consumption

Intervention / Treatment
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* Behavioral: Priming intervention


Participation Criteria
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Eligibility Criteria
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Inclusion Criteria: Subjects should be aged 18 years or above Subjects should be Hong Kong residents Subjects should be able to read Chinese Exclusion Criteria: Subjects who have vegan or vegetarian diets will be excluded Subjects who have to follow special diets due to illnesses will be excluded Subjects domestic helpers will also be excluded

Ages Eligible for Study
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Minimum Age: 18 Years

Sexes Eligible for Study
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All

Accepts Healthy Volunteers
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Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Study Plan
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How is the study designed?
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Design Details

Primary Purpose: Health Services Research
Allocation: Randomized
Intervention Model: Parallel Assignment
Masking: Single


Arms and Interventions

| Participant Group/Arm | Intervention/Treatment |
| --- | --- |
| No Intervention: Control message group<br>Participants will not receive the priming manipulation. | |
| Experimental: Health benefits priming group<br>Participants will be cueing with health benefits by asking to do a word-search exercise beginning with: In the following, please choose words/statements that can indicate that having a healthy and sustainable diet can have health benefits, such as... | Behavioral: Priming intervention<br>* The priming manipulation will be embedded in one computerized experiment to test the effect of three priming interventions on people's emotional reaction and their subsequent sustainable food selection. The priming conditions include priming with health benefits, environment benefits, and co-benefits of having sustainable diets, respectively. The cueing manipulation will be achieved by asking participants to complete a word-search exercise. Brief introduction will be provided to guide participants to choose words/statements that can indicate having a health and sustainable diet can have one of the three benefits: health benefits, environmental benefits or both benefits. The exercise will take  2 min.<br>|
| Experimental: Environmental benefits priming group<br>Participants will be cueing with environmental benefits by asking to do a word-search exercise beginning with: In the following, please choose words/statements that can indicate that having a healthy and sustainable diet can have environmental benefits, such as... | Behavioral: Priming intervention<br>* The priming manipulation will be embedded in one computerized experiment to test the effect of three priming interventions on people's emotional reaction and their subsequent sustainable food selection. The priming conditions include priming with health benefits, environment benefits, and co-benefits of having sustainable diets, respectively. The cueing manipulation will be achieved by asking participants to complete a word-search exercise. Brief introduction will be provided to guide participants to choose words/statements that can indicate having a health and sustainable diet can have one of the three benefits: health benefits, environmental benefits or both benefits. The exercise will take  2 min.<br>|
| Experimental: Environmental and health co-benefits priming group<br>Participants will be cueing with environmental and health co-benefits by asking to do a word-search exercise beginning with: In the following, please choose words/statements that can indicate that having a healthy and sustainable diet can have both benefits for health and the environment, such as... | Behavioral: Priming intervention<br>* The priming manipulation will be embedded in one computerized experiment to test the effect of three priming interventions on people's emotional reaction and their subsequent sustainable food selection. The priming conditions include priming with health benefits, environment benefits, and co-benefits of having sustainable diets, respectively. The cueing manipulation will be achieved by asking participants to complete a word-search exercise. Brief introduction will be provided to guide participants to choose words/statements that can indicate having a health and sustainable diet can have one of the three benefits: health benefits, environmental benefits or both benefits. The exercise will take  2 min.<br>|

What is the study measuring?
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Primary Outcome Measures

| Outcome Measure | Measure Description | Time Frame |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Participants' choice of sustainable foods | Measure name: Participants' food choice for sustainable food Measure tool: E-prime Measure process: During the computerized task, participants will examine a series of food products. Subsequently participants will be directed to simulated webpage for online shopping with all the foods they have examined available and they are required to buy three products they like most with the available budget provided. Measure units: Participants' actual food choice, whether they prefer choosing more sustainable food. | Immediately after they are exposed to priming manipulation | 
| Participants' facial expression | Measure name: Participants' facial expression measured by pupil diameters Measure tool: E-prime with Tobii Pro eye trackers Measure units: Pupil diameters will be used to compare difference when participants view the less or more sustainable foods. The larger pupillary variations is an indicator of interest in the products. | Immediately after they are exposed to priming manipulation | 
| Participants' eye movement data | Measure name: Participants' eye movement data Measure tool: E-prime with Tobii Pro eye trackers Measure units: Count frequency of looking at the environmentally friendly logo for each food category. Greater number indicates greater degree of attention and interest. | Immediately after they are exposed to priming manipulation | 

Secondary Outcome Measures

| Outcome Measure | Measure Description | Time Frame |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Social orientation value | Measure name: Social Orientation Value (SVO) Measure tool: survey questionnaire Measure units: Participants will be classified as prosocial, individualistic, or competitive if they made at least six or more choices consistent with one of the orientations. | Immediately after they complete the computerized task with priming manipulation | 
| Pro-environmental values | Measure name: New Environmental Paradigm (a reduced 6-items version) Measure tool: Survey questionnaire Measure unit: All the responses will be measured on a 5-point agreement scale. Greater aggregated score indicates greater environmental concern. | Immediately after they complete the computerized task with priming manipulation |