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Recently, I was at the airport, waiting for a flight that was long delayed. As most others do, I headed for the snack bar, determined to have some healthy food. I ended up ordering the least healthy food and a strong dose of caffeine. Can behavioural economics explain my unhealthy behaviour?
Suppose my friends and I spend an evening at a mall. After a tiring window-shopping experience, our group ends up at the food court inside the mall. What are we likely to eat?
Yielding to temptation
Our group is more likely to order the least healthy food. Why? All of us possess some level of self-control. We, perhaps, exhausted ours by not going on a shopping binge at the mall. Yielding to temptation was, therefore, natural at the food court.
Was the same force at work when I ordered unhealthy food at the snack bar? Not really. I was returning after a day's work. So, it was not that I had exhausted my store of self-control. Yet, I succumbed to temptation. Why?
The snack bar had a suite of unhealthy eats and some healthy food. For some reason, the unhealthy food seemed less threatening when viewed in presence of the healthy alternative! And that made me settle for most-tasty, least-healthy food.
Vicarious goal fulfilment
Psychologists attribute a reason to this quirky behaviour. They call it vicarious goal fulfilment. They claim that merely looking at the healthy option make us feel that we have achieved the goal of eating healthy food. And that makes us order the least healthy food on the menu! Vicarious, incidentally, means experienced or realised through imagination.
If psychologists are indeed right, the choice of menu can change your incentive to consume. So, beware of health-food restaurants that offer both healthy and non-healthy food; for you may end up ordering the latter. If you are in a mood to binge, go to a place that offers only greasy food. That way, you may end up ordering the healthiest food among the unhealthy ones!
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