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Research has shown that hungry individuals are more impulsive, impatient, and prone to make indulgent food choices compared to their satiated counterparts. However, the literature is still mixed, with some studies showing such results while others fail to demonstrate hunger effects on consumers' choice behavior. The current cross-sectional study ( N  = 461) sought to address these inconsistencies by examining whether the link between hunger and people's propensity to make indulgent (vs. virtuous) food choices is moderated by their healthy eating concerns. Our findings revealed a weak but significant association between participants' self-reported hunger levels and their likelihood of making indulgent rather than virtuous food choices (e.g., preferring a chocolate cake instead of a fruit salad). Importantly, this effect was moderated by their healthy eating concerns, such that the link between hunger and choice likelihood of indulgent food options only emerged among participants who scored lower, but not higher, in healthy eating concerns. We also replicated these results in a robustness check that focused on the extent to which participants indicated having a healthy lifestyle (e.g., exercising regularly), with a similar moderating influence of this factor. Together, these findings shed light on the importance of considering certain boundary conditions for establishing a link between hunger and consumers' food choices, thus adding nuance to the growing body of hunger-related literature. The results emphasize the importance of ensuring the availability of healthier snack options in environments wherein foods and beverages can be consumed, particularly at times when consumers tend to be hungry, to promote healthier eating habits., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2024 Otterbring, Folwarczny and Gasiorowska.)

Kim and Markus (1999; Study 3) found that 74% of European Americans selected a pen with an uncommon (vs. common) color, whereas only 24% of East Asians made such a choice, highlighting a pronounced cross-cultural difference in the extent to which people opt for originality or make majority-based choices. The present high-powered study ( N = 729) conceptually replicates the results from Kim and Markus (1999; Study 3), although our effect size ( r = .12) is significantly weaker than that of the original study ( r = .52). Interestingly, a larger proportion of Chinese, but not US, participants selected a pen with an uncommon color now than during the original study. Thus, our findings indicate a potential transmission of certain Western values to cultures traditionally characterized by collectivism and conformity, likely exacerbated by the globalization of mass media and the rapid economic growth in many East Asian countries.

Current research in food science has explored the influence of front-of-package (FOP) labeling systems on consumer decision-making, yielding mixed results. We suggest that these inconsistent findings regarding FOP labeling effectiveness stem from a failure to consider a pivotal individual-level variable: consumer susceptibility to FOP labeling (CSFL). In the present research, we define this focal construct and develop and psychometrically validate a seven-item instrument that captures the construct across six studies (N = 1134). The current research may assist in segmenting consumers based on their susceptibility to FOP labeling, thereby facilitating the creation of targeted interventions tailored to this individual difference. Notably, the CSFL scale is positively correlated with consumers' willingness to purchase food items with genuine, third-party FOP labels, but not products lacking labels or products with fictitious FOP labels. This supports the predictive validity of the scale in determining important consumption-related outcomes., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare no conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

The Body Appreciation Scale-2 (BAS-2) is a widely used measure of a core facet of the positive body image construct. However, extant research concerning measurement invariance of the BAS-2 across a large number of nations remains limited. Here, we utilised the Body Image in Nature (BINS) dataset - with data collected between 2020 and 2022 - to assess measurement invariance of the BAS-2 across 65 nations, 40 languages, gender identities, and age groups. Multi-group confirmatory factor analysis indicated that full scalar invariance was upheld across all nations, languages, gender identities, and age groups, suggesting that the unidimensional BAS-2 model has widespread applicability. There were large differences across nations and languages in latent body appreciation, while differences across gender identities and age groups were negligible-to-small. Additionally, greater body appreciation was significantly associated with higher life satisfaction, being single (versus being married or in a committed relationship), and greater rurality (versus urbanicity). Across a subset of nations where nation-level data were available, greater body appreciation was also significantly associated with greater cultural distance from the United States and greater relative income inequality. These findings suggest that the BAS-2 likely captures a near-universal conceptualisation of the body appreciation construct, which should facilitate further cross-cultural research., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

Consumers often use their food choices as an impression management strategy to signal desirable aspects about themselves to others, especially in public places like restaurants and cafeterias, where the presence of others can promote certain consumption choices and preference patterns. In mating contexts, people prefer gender-typical traits and characteristics in a potential partner. Food options can also be classified according to their gender typicality, with certain alternatives perceived as feminine (e.g., salad, seafood) and with other options perceived as more masculine (e.g., steak, burger). Drawing on impression management theories from the drinking and dining domain and literature on sex differences in human mate preferences, we present a high-powered experiment investigating whether consumers' preferences for masculine or feminine foods depend on the social setting in which the food consumption takes place: dining with an attractive date (mating) or meeting and eating with friends (non-mating). Participants ( N  = 162, 46.9% females, 53.1% males; age M  = 41.8  years, SD = 14.5) were randomly assigned to one of the two experimental conditions (mating vs. non-mating) and were asked to indicate their food preferences for 15 dishes that differed markedly in perceived femininity/masculinity. Consistent with our theorizing, females (males) generally had a stronger preference for foods perceived as more feminine (masculine), thereby supporting the gender-typicality thesis at the aggregate level. Furthermore, females in the mating condition-but not females in the non-mating condition-reported significantly stronger preferences for more feminine food alternatives. However, in direct contrast to our theorizing, males preferred more masculine meals in the non-mating condition (i.e., when dining with friends), whereas this gender-typical tendency did not emerge in the mating condition (i.e., when dining with an attractive date). We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of these findings and present a set of fruitful avenues for future research., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2023 Gasiorowska, Folwarczny, Tan and Otterbring.)

Extant research has found that the addition of vegetables to a meal induces a "health halo," thereby lowering the perceived calorie content of the entire dish. We investigated whether environmental stimuli that convey naturalness could trigger such a halo effect. Specifically, we tested whether meals accompanied by a natural, as opposed to an urban, background scenery were estimated to be lower in their calorie content and whether this effect was moderated by the perceived healthiness of the food alternatives. In a mixed (between-within-subjects) design experiment, 200 participants estimated the calorie content and rated the healthiness of 18 complex meals presented against either a natural or an urban background. Our results showed no main effect of the food rating background. However, there was a negative relationship between inferred food healthiness and the estimated calorie content of the meals. In addition, we found a significant interaction between food rating background and inferred healthiness of the evaluated food alternatives. Specifically, when participants evaluated meals against a natural background, they rated relatively unhealthy food alternatives as lower in calories than when they evaluated such alternatives against an urban background. Overall, our results highlight the moderating role of perceived food healthiness in studying the effects of environmental cues on consumers' calorie judgments., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper. This research was supported by the Icelandic Research Fund (Project Grant awarded to Valdimar Sigurdsson number 218235-051)., (Copyright © 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Population density has been identified as an ecological factor with considerable behavioral implications. The present research aimed to examine whether the mere perception of more (vs. less) populated places can change consumers' luxury-linked brand attitudes. To this end, we experimentally manipulated consumers' perceptions of population density using pictorial exposure to high (vs. low) population density cues. The results revealed a significant interaction between manipulated population density and perceived brand luxury on brand attitudes. Specifically, exposure to high rather than low population density cues resulted in more positive (negative) attitudes toward brands deemed to be more (less) luxurious. These findings support our prediction that high population density cues can shift people's perceptions in consumption contexts linked to luxury. Our work contributes to the growing stream of literature on population density and suggests that this (geo-) demographic factor can exert important downstream effects on consumer behavior., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2021 Otterbring, Folwarczny and Tan.)

Mass media extensively inform societies about events threatening the global food supply (e.g., pandemics or Brexit). Consumers exposed to such communication may perceive food resources as becoming scarcer. In line with an evolutionary account, these perceptions can shift decision-making in domains such as food preferences or prosociality. However, existing literature has solely focused on actual and past food insecurity experiences threatening mostly low-income families, thus neglecting the future-oriented perceptions among the general population. This paper broadens the food insecurity research scope by developing a new construct-anticipated food scarcity (AFS)-which is defined as the perception that food resources are becoming less available (in the future). We have developed and psychometrically validated the 8-item Anticipated Food Scarcity Scale (AFSS) in eight studies (N = 1333). The 8-item AFSS is unidimensional and has good psychometric qualities. The scale is sensitive to food scarcity cues and, therefore, can be used in experimental research. Moreover, its relatively narrow set of items makes it an exceptionally potent tool for use in online surveys, field settings, and lab studies. Taken together, the AFSS presents an alternative approach to food scarcity measurement in affluent societies and, consequently, can foster novel research on food waste, prosocial behaviors, and other similar topic areas., (Copyright © 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has come with various health recommendations restricting personal freedom, such as social distancing and self-isolation. Considering the personal sacrifices involved, not all individuals are equally willing to comply with such recommendations, which might pose a health hazard further down the line. In a high-powered study ( N  = 800), we show that individual differences in narcissism influence the willingness to self-isolate during pandemics, with individuals high (vs. low) in narcissism being less willing to self-isolate. However, this tendency can be offset by tailored message framing. Specifically, individuals high (vs. low) in narcissism are more (vs. less) willing to self-isolate when information is framed negatively (vs. positively); an effect mediated by the perceived response efficiency of social distancing during outbreaks of infectious diseases. Hence, taking individual differences in narcissism into account when developing tailored communication campaigns constitute a promising way to combat the current pandemic., (© 2021 The Author(s).)

COVID-19 is one of the greatest international health crises in recent years. Due to the highly contagious nature of the virus, the World Health Organization has recommended that people comply with a set of preventive measures to reduce the infection rate (e.g., social distancing, wearing a face mask, thorough personal hygiene). However, people typically differ in the extent to which they are willing to comply with such recommendations, as they imply certain personal restrictions. The present study aimed to investigate whether narcissism levels and message framing strategies affect individuals' willingness to accept personal restrictions and, consequently, comply with a set of preventive health behaviors. Results reveal that people high (vs. low) in grandiose narcissism are less likely to accept personal restrictions and comply with preventive health behaviors, with negative (vs. positive) message framing constituting a more effective strategy for convincing such individuals to comply with said restrictions and behaviors. This effect can be explained through a more pronounced willingness of participants high in grandiose narcissism to accept personal restrictions to protect themselves (egoistic motivation) but not through a willingness to protect vulnerable people (altruistic motivation). Our findings suggest that individuals who remain uncooperative during pandemics could be more effectively addressed with adapted message framing strategies and incentives tailor-made for their distinct personalities., Competing Interests: Tobias Otterbring reports financial support was provided by Aarhus University Research Foundation: The funding source had no role in the study design, data collection, and analyses, nor in the decision to submit the manuscript for publication., (© 2021 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V.)

This research investigated the cognitive mechanisms that underlie impairments in human reasoning triggered by the emotional see-saw technique. It has previously been stated that such manipulation is effective as it presumably induces a mindless state and cognitive deficits in compliant individuals. Based on the dual-system architecture of reasoning (system 2) and affective decision-making (system 1), we challenged the previous theoretical account by indicating that the main source of compliance is impairment of the meta-reasoning system when rapid affective changes occur. To examine this hypothesis, we manipulated affective feelings (system 1 processing) by violating participants' expectations regarding reward and performance in a go/no-go task in which individuals were to inhibit their responses to earn money. Aside from the go/no-go performance, we measured rationality (meta-reasoning system 2) in decision-making by asking participants to comply with a nonsensical request. We found that participants who were exposed to meta-reasoning impairments due to the emotional see-saw phenomenon exhibited mindless behavior., (Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)