Journal
MANAGEMENT SCIENCE
Volume 61, Issue 1, Pages 204-228Publisher
INFORMS
DOI: 10.1287/mnsc.2014.2053
Keywords
consumer choice; goal pursuit; bundles; vices; virtues; self-control; health; taste; balancing goals
Funding
- Fuqua School of Business at Duke University
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We introduce a simple solution to help consumers manage choices between healthy and unhealthy food options: vice-virtue bundles. Vice-virtue bundles are item aggregates with varying proportions of both vice and virtue, holding overall quantity constant. Four studies compare choice and perceptions of differently composed vice-virtue bundles relative to one another and to pure vice and pure virtue options. Although multiple consumer segments can be identified, results suggest that people overall tend to prefer vice-virtue bundles with small (1 4) to medium (12) proportions of vice rather than large (3 4) proportions of vice. Moreover, people generally rate vice-virtue bundles with small vice proportions as healthier but similarly tasty as bundles with larger vice proportions. For most individuals, choice patterns are different from those predicted by variety-seeking accounts alone. Instead, these findings provide evidence of asymmetric effectiveness of small vice and virtue proportions at addressing taste and health goals, respectively.
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