Peggy Liu, Ben L. Fryrear Chair in Marketing and Associate Professor of Business Administration, Katz Graduate School of Business
Context: This project examines two common ways consumers think about calorie information and its implications for their food choices. The first way is to try to come up with exact numerical calorie counts for a food (e.g., What number of calories is in this turkey sandwich? What number of calories is in this cheeseburger?). The second way is to think in magnitude terms about calories for a food (e.g., Does this turkey sandwich have very few or very many calories? Does this cheeseburger have very few or very many?).
Key Findings: This study brought what may seem like two equivalent thought processes to the forefront and allowed researchers to study how the two different ways of thinking about calories have important implications. Throughout the studies, participants who thought about calories in qualitative terms thought that healthier types of foods had fewer calories despite having larger portion sizes, whereas participants who thought about calories in exact numeric terms appropriately factored in portion sizes.
Recommendation: Paying attention to both portion sizes and the type of food can help people better accurately gauge their calorie intake and make choices in line with any calorie management goals they might have.
Researchers: Peggy Liu; Kaitlin Woolley, Associate Professor of Marketing at SC Johnson College of Business, Cornell University.
Methodology: Six studies were conducted. For example, in one study, people who had consumed Subway and McDonald’s in the previous year were asked to guess the calories in a McDonald’s cheeseburger and the calories in a Subway 12-inch turkey sandwich. Importantly, those randomly assigned to guess exact numbers correctly thought the Subway 12-inch turkey sandwich had more calories than the McDonald’s cheeseburger. By contrast, those randomly assigned to provide a magnitude estimate (e.g., rating each sandwich from “very few calories” to “a lot of calories” incorrectly thought the Subway 12-inch turkey sandwich had fewer calories than the McDonald’s cheeseburger.)
Additional Details: Journal of Consumer Research, The Conversation
