HEALTHY DIET? WILLPOWER AFFECT THE FINANCIAL SCARCITY AND HOW DOES PERCEIVED

HOW

DOES

PERCEIVED

FINANCIAL

SCARCITY

AND

WILLPOWER

AFFECT

THE

HEALTHY

DIET?

Master’s In marketing management.

Nargiz Yusifova

Abstract

The healthy choices people make in their daily lives are highly

dependent on their perceived financial scarcity. Moreover, this

effect will vary with the implicit beliefs of people about the

willpower.

S3981266

Coach: Martijn Keizer

2

Preface

3

Executive Summary

Self-control is a feature that allows us to make decisions in favor of our long-term health and well-being. One of the reasons we cannot fully benefit from our self-control is the exhaustion that the financial scarcity brings upon us. Perceived financial scarcity puts a burden on our daily regime, which in the end exhausts our resources of self-control as we try to resist temptations that are not in the financial circle that we can allow ourselves to spend on. This way, at the point when we need to make a decision about our healthy diet, we usually fail as depletion of self-control does not let us exert it at the subsequent tasks. As a result of this, there is a positive correlation between financial scarcity and unhealthy eating patterns. People who are worse off financially are more inclined to develop an unhealthy diet and eating habits. However, this has less to do with the scarcity of one’s financial resource than it has to do with the perceived financial scarcity and financial position a person finds himself/herself in. The research question “How does perceived financial scarcity and willpower affect the healthy diet?” has been developed from above-mentioned assumptions. As a second insight, the study also argues that this effect will also depend on the beliefs that people hold about willpower, such as how it is limited and gets exhausted, or it does not get depleted and can be used even after exhausting activity for self-control.

The study was conducted with the use of financial manipulation to put the

respondents either in a financially scarce, or abundant situation. Manipulation check revealed that the strategy used was efficient, and could be used as a base for the reasoning. The

4 effects of the financial condition on the food choices. Both of the main effects were

significant, showing that people’s ability to demonstrate their self-control depends on their perceived financial condition and their implicit beliefs of the willpower they own. However, the moderator was not significant, pointing out that the effects did not depend on each other and solely affected the dependent variable.

The study can benefit the managers and academicians in several ways. For managers, it is beneficial to see whatare some of the main reasons people choose unhealthy food over healthy one. There is an ongoing concern for the healthy diet and lifestyle in general (Euromonitor Research, 2017). With a growing demand, there is an increasing supply of healthy food and products. If the companies can raise their awareness of factors that trigger people to consume unhealthy food, it will make their jobs easier to focus on how to avoid these. The study can be used to understand the customer behavior while shopping online or making food choices even in restaurants. For the overall well-being, the environmental factors should be constructed as such that they do not incur any financial scarcity burden on a customer. Also, making marketing campaigns and sales pitches around a person’s own ability to control the willpower can be a demonstration of a non-limited theory of willpower and influence the customer’s decisions in a right way. As the study was conducted online, it can as well bring benefit to companies that are focusing on e-commerce.

More than 2.5 billion people live on less than 2 dollars a day, and try to fit their nutrition into this amount. Our understanding of how to sell and market to this segment of population is negligible, and does not take into account the macro components of the

5 financial scarcity perception and puts an emphasis on the person’s own ability to control his/her willpower, sales of healthy foods can increase for good.

The current research can be also useful for academicians as it investigates a link between poverty and healthy eating in a self-control domain. It is a new window to the research on poverty and self-control. Coupled with the added variable of willpower and its relation to the effects, the study provides an interesting insight into the milieu of consumer psychology. Further research can be conducted on possibilities of manipulating the

psychological precedents of such feelings.

Introduction

What connects all the people at some point during the day is that we all have to decide on what to eat. When we think of the options that can be chosen to consume, endless

6 Self-control is argued to be a limited source, and when it is devoted to one activity, it gets depleted, and the capacity to exert control is diminished in subsequent tasks (Muraven et al., 1998). The applications of self-control on eating behavior has been studied previously several times . Research on the strength of control suggested that people with a high self-control can more easily reject tasty and convenient unhealthy foods (Baumeister & Vohs, 2007). The reason behind this is that people with a higher self-control are able to think about long-term benefits despite momentary gratification.

To put in more simple terms, how we value long-term consequences over short-term impulses is linked to our ability of self-control exertion during these daily choices

(Baumeister & Heatherton, 1996). This means that if the person is able to choose an apple instead of a chocolate bar because of the health benefits of the former rather than momentary taste gratification of the latter, he/she prioritizes long-term consequences without yielding to short-term impulses. As in this example, in this research, I will focus on one specific aspect of self-control exertion in decision-making, which is in the context of eating behavior. The reason I specifically chose this very aspect is that regardless of the type and volume of decisions made, we all have to decide on what to eat during the day, which puts us all on the same level for a moment.

7 2012). The psychological burden that comes with poverty results in a lack of self-control which then spills over to eating behaviors of these people.

However, can this effect be equally applied to all consumers? In this study, the moderating role of lay theories on willpower will be applied. There is evidence from the research that people’s implicit beliefs about their own willpower predict their ability to exert self-control in their daily life (Job et al., 2010). In particular, for the people who believe that self-control is a limited source, the effect of their capacity to self-control weakens as a result of decreased efforts (Job et al., 2010). This finding suggests that people’s beliefs about how willpower works will affect their actual exertion of self-control.

There has been research on how a drop in self-control leads to unhealthy eating behavior. I will get a bit further into details of this behavior and test the specific behavioral antecedent as self-control. This paper will shed a light on the differences between people’s assumptions about willpower and its effects on their ability to exert self-control while choosing between healthy and unhealthy alternatives.

Managerial relevance

8 From a managerial standpoint, the issue examined in this paper is useful due to

various reasons. Firstly, with an upward healthy food consumption trend, it is for the ultimate benefit of the marketers to know what factors influence unhealthy food consumption. The current study focuses on how effects of financial scarcity lead to unhealthy choices. Hence, by understanding environmental and situational factors that trigger feelings of scarcity and deprivation, marketers can actually target these feelings and lead consumers in a direction benefitting both sides.

Another benefit of the study would be for governmental and non-profit organizations that strive for public health and well-being of individuals. They can use the frame of the study to understand and change the irrational behavior or deprived consumers. According to Pareto optimum, individuals are able to ensure their well-being if they are capable of making informed choices (Burroughs & Rindfleisch, 2012).

It will bring long-term benefits as improved individual well-being will accumulate and result in the nation’s well-being.

Last but not the least advantage of the study that needs to be pointed out is that as the study involves choosing products online, only by seeing them, it offers an insight for the companies who also run their business online. Today it is something that cannot be avoided with everything going digital more and more. Hence, features of this study are aligned with what businesses need to learn about their customers to analyze their e-commerce.

Academic relevance

9 self-control. The current study aims at providing an insight into the direct linkage between poverty and unhealthy eating. The paper tries to understand from which path poverty leads to poor choices in food context and analyzes the relationship between the variables. As an additional tool, the paper examines the role of willpower and how people’s beliefs from a psychological perspective can be influential in their ability to exert that self-control. It is an important tool to understand importance of psychological beliefs in guiding people to a healthier lifestyle. As such further research can also investigate if the manipulation of the lay theories can lead to healthier choices, or in general to a stronger ability to exert self-control in certain domains. Hence, the results of the current study will be useful for further research into the topic of poor behavioral factors that influence eating habits.

Literature review

10 if you wake up in the morning and think about how much money you will make for that day, whether it is enough to pay for the bills, if your rent is being later or not, you will zero in on all your energy on these thoughts and will try to avoid any further expenses during the day to save on the expenses.

With all these tasks and concerns that demand our attention, at the end of the day, we end up with an exhausted self-control, lack of ability to behave in a self-regulated manner. When people are not able to exert self-control, they start making irrational decisions that are focused on short-term benefits. Hence, when a person is under constant financial strain, he/she will feel relatively exhausted, will no longer be able to resist the temptation to eat a chocolate bar, instead of a simple fruit as he/she will not want to think of anything else already. People who have less ability to demonstrate self-controlled behavior, are more prone to buying their food based on impulsive decisions (Vohs & Faber, 2007). Authors claim that a diminished pool of self-control makes people more inclined to take decisions that are not thoughtful and rationalized. Their decisions do not take into account long-term consequences and benefits. This means that unless people have the ability to behave in a self-controlled manner, their decisions will be guided by consideration of short-term benefits and impulsive decisions. Self-regulation is significantly inversely related to unhealthy eating behavior (Kalavana et. al., 2010). Therefore, the less people have ability to behave in a self-controlled manner, the less they will make healthier and well-thought decisions in regard to their nutrition. To generalize, there is a general tendency of people leading an unhealthy lifestyle due to their inability to exert self-control (Konze et. al., 2008). Thus, as they have to make also decisions about what food to consume every day, their lack of self-control will lead to poor choices in eating behavior.

self-11 control exertion in subsequent tasks. When a person is tired of daily concerns that come with financial deprivation, later through day he/she will no longer be able to regulate desires and impulses that come on the way. It becomes harder to focus on long-term benefits when there is no self-control available in the hands of a customer. Self-control is argued to be one of the main resources that keeps us on track and helps to achieve goals. Without it, people make decisions that are harmful for them in future, such as consuming unhealthy food.

One would expect that for the people to feel deprived of financial resources, there should be an objective baseline of low income or socioeconomic status. Surprisingly, to feel financially deprived, there is no need for an objective lack of resources. People tend to estimate their financial position based on subjective standards that can vary based on context, such as relative well-being according to others, or the situation (Sharma &Alter, 2012). Subjective standards can vary for everyone and there is no such condition to allocate people based on what situation makes them more deprived. The study by Cook & Sadeghein (2018), showed that there is no need for an actual lack of financial resources for people to perceive it as real. They manipulated participants through a scenario of “You got broke” or “You just got paid”. Manipulation checks proved significant by asking respondents about their

12 Presumably, self-control is the main antecedent of the choices people make in their daily lives which include overriding of long-term benefits for short-term impulsive desires (Baumeister et. al., 1996). Self-control helps people accomplish their goals and align their behaviors with the values. Inadequate self-control is linked to obesity, alcoholism, drug abuse and smoking (Baumeister et. al., 2007). The above-mentioned activities all lead to a worse individual well-being in the long-run and affect the health condition. The reason behind is that self-control is part of the resource model, which means that it works well when the resources are abundant (Baumeister et. al., 2007). Recent studies support the resource model of self-control. The reason people fail to behave in a self-regulated way is that their resources have diminished because of a situation requiring effortful self-control exertion (Vohs & Heatherton, 2000). A study by Vohs & Heatherton (2010) also tested this hypothesis by asking people to suppress their emotional control which led to an inhibited self-control. Participants were divided into two groups, one of which was subject to exerting self-control to suppress their emotions. Afterwards, both groups were offered ice cream, and ice-cream consumption was more significant in the case when participants were exposed to exertion of control. This again leads to the claim that it is harder to resist the temptations when self-control is depleted.

Before diving into the self-controlled behavior in the healthy/unhealthy food domain, the meaning of what is defined as healthy needs to be grounded on the floor. As a common sense, food is divided into healthy and unhealthy labels. There have been arguments on what can be counted as healthy and if it depends on nutrients. The research by Oakes &

13 as well. So, the study will conduct a pre-test to analyze the participants’ opinions on the matter.

The self-control exertion is very important in the food context as well. As people who feel financially deprived do not have enough self-control to use while they make their food choices, it results in poorer diets for them. Unhealthy food can bring hedonic pleasures, but it is not always advisable to go for them for the sake of longer-term constraints and benefits. This is the reason why people need to exert self-control to avoid this pleasure to take the rule of their minds (Hofmann et al., 2007). An experiment conducted among a sample of women showed that when they had lack of self-control resources, it resulted in a significantly higher consumption of candy (Sproesser et. al., 2011). The feelings of financial scarcity have been tested among different socio-economic groups, as well. The study by Klein & Carneille (2016) revealed that people who were reminded of the low socio-economic status were more inclined to choose impulsive food temptations that are harmful for them in the longer-term. People from low socio-economic groups consume food mainly with a higher fat percentage and with low nutritional values (Kamphuis et al., 2015). These people also tend to have a lower percentage of fresh fruit and vegetables in their daily menu.

14 also found out that a higher self-control was significantly positively related to less money spent on unhealthy foods and drinks (Junger & Kampen, 2010).

From the literature that has been reviewed, it can be concluded that feelings of

financial scarcity exhaust the available self-control and push people into taking irrational and unhealthier choices for their lives. The available literature on the topic suggests that in unhealthy vs. healthy food context, deprived participants will be less able to resist unhealthy choices. Hence, my first hypothesis on the paper will be the following:

H1: Participants who feel financially deprived will choose more unhealthy products relative to the people who do not feel financially deprived.

15 The practical applications of the willpower are very valid to take into account for the regulation of self-control in daily choices that people make. Hence, the lay theories that people hold about the willpower should be taken into account while looking into behavioral actions linked with self-control such as healthy eating behavior. According to Bernecker & Job (2015a), limited willpower theories are linked to poor self-controlled behavior in health domains and lead to poor diet. The reason is that those who believe that willpower is limited, are less able to resist the temptations after the self-control is exhausted (Bernecker & Job, 2017). It becomes harder to focus on the long-term benefits and not yield to the hedonic pleasure that the impulsive eating of this chocolate will bring at the moment. If you believe that, your willpower is of limited source. You become convinced that after a self-control demanding task, your resources are depleted already, and thus you no longer can reject the temptation to consume the food. On the other side, if you are a believer of non-limited willpower theory,you think that controlling the willpower is in your hands, and you can only make the decision on whether you can reject the temptational food. Hence, when people believe that their self-control is limited, after an exhausting day or activity when self-control gets fatigue, these people do not pressure themselves to take control of their eating as they believe that it is impossible to do with the willpower being depleted.

16 To elaborate on, based on lay theories that people hold about the willpower, the exertion of self-control will vary. People who believe willpower is of limited resource, will be less able to induce self-controlled behavior during subsequent tasks. This means that they will consider willpower as a resource that can get depleted and diminished. Hence, after an exhausting day or activity, according to the limited resource belief, people are less able to control their behaviors in a self-regulated way. This moderator of willpower can potentially intervene with people’s ability to choose healthy options. For the people that hold onto a lay theory that willpower is limited, it will be much harder to lead a healthier lifestyle.

Accordingly, it brings up to my second and third hypotheses of the paper:

H2: People who hold onto the limited theory of implicit beliefs will choose unhealthier products than those who hold onto the non-limited theory.

H3: The implicit beliefs of willpower will act as a moderator between perceived financial scarcity and self-controlled behavior.

Conceptual model

The relationship between the variables is illustrated above. Perceived financial scarcity is the independent variable, which is manipulated by making people believe either

Implicit theories of willpower

17 that they are financially deprived or rich. The second relationship is between implicit theories of willpower and dependent variable. People were asked about their beliefs of how limited willpower is, and aside from its main effect this is assumed to moderate the effect of the independent variable of financial scarcity on the dependent variable, which is the third relationship between variables. The methodology section will describe the process in more details. The dependent variable is the choice of healthy and unhealthy products. The context of a self-controlled behavior was be measured by asking people to choose between healthy and unhealthy alternatives

To sum up, I will test the following three hypotheses:

H1: Participants who feel financially deprived will choose more unhealthy products compared to the people who do not feel financially deprived.

H2: People who hold onto the limited theory of implicit beliefs will choose unhealthier products than those who hold onto the non-limited theory.

H3: The implicit beliefs of willpower will act as a moderator between perceived scarcity and self-controlled behavior.

Methodology

Participants & Design

18 participants were granted confidentiality of their answers and were informed that the study is for the purposes of the master thesis research. They were informed that it is research on how the personality traits impact on food choices. Overall, the survey was completed by 185 respondents. However, only 145 of them completed all the questions in the survey. Additionally, 16 of them were excluded due to answering manipulation check questions falsely and showing inconsistencies in their answers. However, only 11 of them showed inconsistencies for the rest of the survey by finishing the survey unacceptably quickly and answering in a random order. Even though other 5 respondents answered the manipulation question wrong, the manipulation check significance did not change when considering them. Together, this left the survey with 134 respondents to analyze. The participants consisted of 64 males (47.8%) and 70 females (52.2%). The mean age is 26, in a sample of 16 to 54, and the median age is 24.

Process

The survey started by asking participants simple questions about their age and gender to make it easier to sub-group them and infer further conclusions, if any.

Independent variable: Financial deprivation

19 numbers that are higher. It will create a scarcity mindset when people are confronted with their savings in the face of larger amounts and will feel deprived.

Dependent variable: Healthy versus unhealthy choices

The dependent variable, which needed to be tested, was the choices people make between healthy and unhealthy products of the similar price category in one choice task. The similar price range allowed to eliminate the exogenous price bias that can affect people’s judgement. 16 choices were pretested to make sure that these products were actually seen unhealthy or healthy on a seven-point Likert scale. After the pretest was conducted among a different set of participants, the real study was conducted with the confirmed product choices. Top products that have been confirmed to be healthy were added to the study. The pretest was distributed among 47 people: 20 male and 27 females. Survey was conducted on the survey platform, Survey Swap, where the audience is mostly young adult researchers working on dissertation or thesis. Top 5 healthy and top 5 unhealthy products were chosen based on the median score of their healthiness on a Likert scale (Appendix Fig.A).

To measure the dependent variable, participants were asked to choose between 5 pairs of unhealthy versus healthy options. The answers were coded, where 0 indicates a healthy option, and 1 indicates an unhealthy option. Afterwards, the dependent variable was

calculated by the number of unhealthy choices that a participant chose, and a new continuous variable – ‘unhealthy choices’ was created .

Potential moderator: implicit beliefs of willpower

20 questions were about strenuous mental activity and resisting temptations. Example questions were: “After a strenuous mental activity you feel energized for further challenging activities” ; “It is particularly difficult to resist a temptation after resisting another temptation right before” ; “Resisting temptations activates your willpower, and you become even better able to face new upcoming temptations”. All the questions are shown in Appendix 1-8 at the end of the study. The scores for some questions were reversed so that high values show a stronger agreement with the limited theory. After that, the questions were combined into one variable which is the limited willpower. The Cronbach alpha of these 12 questions showed a value of 0.794, which indicates a reliable scale (Table 1). Also, scale if item deleted values showed that the alpha would not increase with any of the questions being deleted. Hence, all 12 questions remained, and were combined into one variable.

Cronbach's Alpha Cronbach's Alpha Based on Standardized Items N of Items .794 .796 12

Table 1. Reliability analysis of willpower questions

According to the theory, there are solely two types of people; however, the results of the survey had willpower scores of mainly the same ranges. The mean was 3.27; the median was 3.33, and the mode was 3.58. If this sample was separated into 2 groups, it would not be efficient as the group sizes would not be close enough to allow for a variety within the groups as all the numbers would be closer to the mean number. Thus, the division of those

21 needed range of change between the participants. Hence, people who scored more in the question scale were treated as the ones who had more limited willpower.

Manipulation checks:

At the end of the study, participants were asked about their financial deprivation to make sure that the manipulation was successful. The participants were asked about how satisfied they are about their financial position in a seven-point Likert scale (1=strongly disagree, 7=strongly agree). The question was closely related to the type of manipulation the participants were exposed to. Hence, people were asked to rate the following statement: “I am dissatisfied with the amount in my savings account”. Manipulation check proved to be successful. The means of two conditions below shows that participants in the scarce condition (condition 2) were more dissatisfied with their savings (Table 2).

I am dissatisfied with the amount in my savings account

Condition Mean N Deviation Std. Financially

not scarce 2.48 61 1.206 Financially

scarce 5.51 73 1.094

Total 4.13 134 1.897

Table 2. Manipulation check compared means

In the end, all the participants were thanked for their participation.

Analysis plan

22 regarding the moderator effect was also tested by linear regression, with the added interaction variable of willpower and financial condition. As a supplementary analysis, the Analysis of Covariance was also run to test for the effect of the covariate of age on the dependent variable, to check if the model’s significance changed with the covariate.

For a detailed insight, the correlations table was extracted.. Additionally, the

reliability analysis was also conducted to test if the scale could be used in the study as a solid foundation.

Results

H1: Participants who feel financially deprived will choose more unhealthy products compared to the people who do not feel financially deprived.

23

Table 3.

In order to analyze whether or not the number of unhealthy food choices picked differed for financially scarce or not scarce manipulated participants, the independent sample t-test was conducted. The test was significant, t= -10.941, p<0.001. The average number of unhealthy choices picked in the financially not scarce condition differed from the average number of unhealthy choices picked in the financially scarce condition. The test showed a significant difference between two different conditions with a mean difference of -1.76. As a follow-up test, the mean comparison of two conditions showed that out of 5 pairs to choose, people in a financially scarce condition chose more unhealthy products, on average 3.19 (M=3.19, S.D = 0.99). Participants in the financially not scarce condition, on the other hand, chose less unhealthy options, on average 1.42 (M=1.42, SD=0.84). This shows that in two different conditions, financially scarce or not, participants chose different types of products, healthier/unhealthier than the opponent group. In essence, as it was argued in the hypothesis, the one-way Anova test showed that there is a significant difference

24 p<0.01. The graph below shows the mean difference of the number of healthy choices picked for the 2 different conditions.

Table 4. Financial scarcity’s effect on unhealthy choices

H2: People who hold onto the limited theory of implicit beliefs will choose unhealthier products than those who hold non-limited theory.

self-25 control, it becomes harder to resist temptations on the subsequent tasks, chose unhealthier products than other participants, who had a more non-limited willpower. The direct effect of the willpower also aligns with the reviewed literature.

H3: The implicit beliefs of willpower will act as a moderator between perceived scarcity and self-controlled behavior.

To test whether or not a financial condition and willpower had an effect on unhealthy choices, a linear regression was performed, in which financial condition and willpower regressed on unhealthy choices picked. The regression analysis was significant as seen from the table below with R2=0.517 (adj. R2 =0.509), F(2,131)=70.053, p<0.001. For the main effects, financial condition (B=1,754, t=11.274, p<0.001) and willpower (B=0.358, t=3.343, p=0.001) both had significant effects on unhealthy choices picked.

Coefficients

B t Sig.

constant -1.491 -3.491 0.001

financial condition 1.754 11.274 0.000 limited willpower 0.358 3.343 0.001

Table 5. Linear Regression of model without moderator

26 The reason for this, might be that people had a fixed belief of their willpower no matter what the condition was. The R square of the model is large enough to show the significance of the model R2=0.526. The Anova test of the regression shows that it has a significance p-value <0.01, F(3,130)=48.076. The main effects of willpower B=0.333, t=3.103, p=0.002 and financial condition B=1,753, t=11.338, p<0.001 showed again significant effect on unhealthy choices picked. However, the interaction variable is not significant with B=-0.123, t=-0.97, p=0.116. The probable explanations and reasonings will be analyzed in the discussion chapter. The coefficients of the regression model are depicted below.

Coefficients

Table 6. Linear Regression with moderator

From the correlations table in Appendix Fig. B it can be observed that age has significant positive correlation with limited willpower. Hence, as the person gets older, his/her beliefs about the willpower turn to being more limited, such as it has a limit, and decreases when devoted to activity that involves use of self-control. This finding actually contradicts the literature on this topic. The reasoning for this result will be interpreted in the discussion part, as well.

27 picked first. The model had an R2 value of 0.765. (adj. R2 =0.604). The main effects of

willpower F=2.127, p=0.003, and financial condition F=91.307, p<0.001 were significant again. The interaction variable of willpower and financial condition were not significant as expected from previous statistical tests F=0.985, p=0.489. In the second run, the same model was run with an added variable of age as covariate. The results of the ANCOVA test showed that the age itself was not a significant variable F=0.937, p=0.336, and its inclusion did not significantly improve the model. The results were as follows: R2 =0.767 (adj. R2 =0.603). The main effects of willpower F=2.163, p=0.003 and financial condition F=88.889, p<0.001 were still significant, and the interaction variable was not significant F=0.967, p=0.509. This showed that the significance of the model did not come from the covariate, and its inclusion did not affect the results much. The table below shows the coefficients of the test that was run.

Test of between subjects effects

F Sig.

financial condition 2.137 0.003

limited willpower 91.307 0.000

moderator 0.985 0.489

Table 7. ANCOVA of the full model

Test of between subjects effects

F Sig.

financial condition 2.163 0.003

limited willpower 88.889 0.000

moderator 0.967 0.509

age 0.937 0.336

Table 8. ANCOVA with the added covariate age

28 account (sig.<0.01). This serves as a check of the manipulation that was presented at the beginning of study to divide the respondents into 2 groups: Financially scarce and not scarce. People who were manipulated to be in a financially scarce condition, were more dissatisfied with the amount in their savings account than the other group with a mean difference of 3.03 (M. scarce 5.51; M. non-scarce 2.48) on a 7-point Likert scale. The manipulation check question was also positively correlated to unhealthy choices the

participants picked (sig.<0.01). The more dissatisfied the person was with his/her amount in the savings account, the unhealthier options were picked. This shows a proof of the success of the manipulation technique used by Nelson et al. (2005). The table below is the graphical representation showing that people who agree to be dissatisfied with their financial savings, on average chose unhealthier choices than the ones who were not that much dissatisfied.

29

Discussion

We are forced to make multiple every-day decisions that involve our food intake during our normal routine. Hence, food has become not only a necessity, but also a personal preference and decision as we have several options to choose from. This creates segmentation of people based on the variance in preferences of food. Food companies target many

segments, and it is vital to know that there are very solid differences in the preferences of people due to the financial position they have. The purpose of this study was to analyze the effects of the perceived financial scarcity on decision-making in the food context and the specific reason of self-control behind it. The research also analyzed the effect of people’s beliefs about willpower on their decision-making.

30 be due to the reason that people have different takes on meals and snacks, and unhealthiness is not an issue in a meal category. This stays as an assumption, but also an interesting point for further research. The further research could add more choices which are meal-based and see if there is a difference between how people react to snack and meal choices. To sum up this proposal, a study that investigates the reasons behind people choosing the specific product type could give a larger insight into why people preferred only burger among all the unhealthy choices offered.

The second hypothesis was about the effect of willpower beliefs on the ability to exert self-control. Here, again, the linear regression test proved the hypothesis significant. It can act as a replication of what the other studies have argued before on this topic. For example according to Job et. al., (2010), the participants in their studies also had an ability to exert higher self-control when they held a non-limited theory of willpower. People who hold a theory that their willpower is of limited source and gets exhausted after being used up for an activity that involves self-control exertion, have a poor diet and eat unhealthier food

31 could be associated with an addictive behavior, and the willpower beliefs that the person holds onto, could not matter. Hence, by extending the research to a field that is also health related in the self-control domain, but is often regarded as addictive behavior, it could provide an insight if willpower is useful in this context as well. In case that the results replicate, it would give very beneficial apprehension of the addictive behaviors in the health domain.

The next hypothesis was about the moderator effect on the unhealthy eating behavior. The moderator chosen was implicit beliefs of participants about their own willpower.

However, the tests did not prove the hypothesis true, the interaction variable was not

significant. The reason why the moderator relationship was not significant can be due to the reason that people had a set of beliefs about their willpower, and it was not affected by their financial position. Also, the p-value of moderator was not largely insignificant. As it was in the same direction that was argued in the hypothesis, in a way it shows that if significant enough, the moderator effect of limited willpower and financial scarcity can have a more significant effect on the dependent variable. The sign of the moderator effect was negative, which means that the effect of the financial scarcity on unhealthy choices picked are assumed to get bigger with the increased limited willpower. Hence, if the sample data was large enough, the hypothesis could have been proved. This shows that there is a gap in this study that can be reviewed and repeated for stronger results.

As an unexpected encounter, the correlations table showed that, the age of

32 older people felt more self-determined and in control of their willpower; hence, they believed that willpower is non-limited. (Job et. al., 2018). However, according to the division of age groups in the studies, old people were defined as those aged 60 years and above, and the younger category was considered be 35 years old and below. The current survey had its limitations on the spread of the age groups, such that the oldest participant was 54 years old, and 26 was the mean age of the overall sample. This means that actually the sample of this study does not have the participants eligible to test for the theory of older age groups, and the age division of this survey actually falls into the young people category of the research of Job et. al. (2018). This potentially explains the difference in the current study and the previous research done.

Limitations

The study had its limitations in several dimensions. First but foremost, the study was conducted online; hence, it does not fully represent actions of people when they make

decisions on food shopping unless it is done online. So, the study could be conducted again in a laboratory environment for checking any differences that can be generalized for the retail environment as well. Seeing and feeling the smell, the texture of the product physically can affect customers’ decisions at the time being.

33 increase in the sample size could have also affected the significance of the moderator effect which was in the negative direction as argued by hypothesis. Considering it was not largely insignificant now, increasing the sample size and conducting the research again in a similar way can be something useful to look into in further research.

The last point would be about the product choices that were presented to respondents. The one product pair that was standing out was the burger versus salad. The burger was chosen most and the salad least, which happens to be the only choice as a meal category. All other choices were closer to snacks; hence it would be interesting to see if the same would apply to all the meal choices, or it is just about personal preference for specific products. In future research, the same study could be conducted with added choices of meals and snacks. If the results can be generalized, then not only food manufacturers, but also online restaurant deliveries can benefit from the results of this study.

Summary

34 The moderator effect of willpower and financial condition did not prove significant, which showed that the effects are not dependent on each other and solely affected the dependent variable.

35

Appendices

37

Survey

Appendix 1.

Dear participant, thank you very much for taking part in my survey for graduation study. The survey is conducted to test the effects of personality on the food product choices. All the responses are confidential and will be recorded anonymously. After you read this, please proceed with the survey that will take approximately 3 minutes.

Appendix 2. Your age Appendix 3 Your gender Appendix 4

How much savings do you have in total? (All amounts are in Euros)

• 0-49 • 50-99 • 100-149 • 150-199 • 200-249 • 250-299 • 300-349 • 350-399 • 400-449 • 450-499 • over 500 Appendix 5

How much savings do you have in total? (All amounts are in Euros)

38 • 500-999 • 1,000-4,999 • 5,000-9,999 • 10,000-49,999 • 50,000-99,999 • 100,000-199,999 • 200,000-399,999 • over 400,000 Appendix 6

This questionnaire has been designed to investigate your ideas about willpower. Willpower is what you use to resist temptations, to stick to your intentions, and to remain in strenuous mental activity. There are no right or wrong answers. We are interested in your ideas.

Using the scale below, please indicate to what extent you agree or disagree with the following statements. 1= strongly agree and 6=strongly disagree

Strenuous mental activity

Strenuous mental activity exhausts your resources, which you need to refuel afterwards (e.g. through taking breaks, doing nothing, watching television, eating snacks).

After a strenuous mental activity, your energy is depleted, and you must rest to get it refueled again.

When you have been working on a strenuous mental task, you feel energized and you are able to immediately start with another demanding activity. (R)

Your mental stamina fuels itself. Even after strenuous mental exertion, you can continue doing more of it. (R)

When you have completed a strenuous mental activity, you cannot start another activity immediately with the same concentration because you have to recover your mental energy again.

After a strenuous mental activity, you feel energized for further challenging activities. (R) Resisting temptations

39 When situations accumulate that challenge you with temptations, it gets more and more difficult to resist the temptations.

If you have just resisted a strong temptation, you feel strengthened and you can withstand any new temptations. (R)

It is particularly difficult to resist a temptation after resisting another temptation right before.

Resisting temptations activates your willpower and you become even better able to face new upcoming temptations. (R)

Your capacity to resist temptations is not limited. Even after you have resisted a strong temptation you can control yourself right afterwards. (R)

Note. R = reversed items

43

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