Project

How being a responsible parent is challenging: An inquiry on the role of delay discounting in how parents resist child-targeted product packaging

Code
3G023422
Duration
01 January 2022 → 31 December 2025
Funding
Research Foundation - Flanders (FWO)
Promotor-spokesperson
Research disciplines
  • Social sciences
    • Consumer behaviour
    • Marketing communications
    • Communication management
    • Media and communication theory
Keywords
Food Marketing Product Packaging Resistance to persuasion
 
Project description

Overweight and obesity rates among children are alarmingly high. Although the European food industry acknowledges the risk posed by marketing unhealthy food products to young children and installed the EU Pledge agreement (in which they agreed not to advertise their energy-dense foods to those children), food packages fall outside the Pledge’s scope and parents are still highly targeted. Packages (of energy-dense foods) often use bright colors, characters and a fun shape in order to persuade children to pester their parents to buy the products in grocery stores. Little is known however on how parents resist such child-targeted food packages. This project fills a gap in research on how decisions are made for others by examining how hyperbolic discounting affects caregiving decisions made by parents in grocery stores. As the hyperbolic discounting theory suggests that people have the tendency to value short-term rewards more than long-term rewards (i.e., delay discounting), this project aims to examine how child-targeted product packages affect parents’ delay discounting and whether it makes them less resistant to persuasion. This project will examine the moderating role of parents' self-control and presence of the child and examine the effectiveness of an intervention study in a retail environment to increase parents’ resistance to those child-targeted food packages of energy-dense foods. This project will give rise to recommendations for public policy and advertising practice