| dc.description.abstract | Abstract
Previous research has demonstrated that consumers frequently experience a health halo
effect from “organic” claims when evaluating food products. This bias can be highly
inaccurate, leading to unintended, unhealthy consumer choices (e.g. underestimation
of the calorie content, higher willingness to forgo exercise). In contrary to previous
studies, our paper aims to highlight the halo effect specifically pertaining to the
estimation of physical efforts to burn calories. In Study 1, we replicated a previous
finding on the underestimation of the calories but did not observe any statistically
varying effect in estimating “minutes to walk” across conditions (conventional vs.
organic). In Study 2, we modified a dependent variable from “minutes to walk” to
“intensity of exercise” but no statistical significance has emerged. In Study 3, we added
a high-calorie condition given the assumption that it would trigger the halo bias.
Nonetheless, consistent with the two previous studies, we observed no such bias in our
final study. To sum up, our finding indicates that estimating physical effort may hinder
the halo effect when it comes to organic food consumption scenarios.
Keywords: halo effect, health halo, organic, food labeling, health claims, calorie
estimation, physical effort estimation | nb_NO |
