Factors that affect food choices:
* Biological determinants such as hunger, appetite, and taste
* Economic determinants such as cost, income, availability
* Physical determinants such as access, education, skills (e.g. cooking) and time
* Social determinants such as culture, family, peers and meal patterns
* Psychological determinants such as mood, stress and guilt
* Attitudes, beliefs and knowledge about food

Jam study
In 2000, psychologists Iyengar & Lepper published a study about jams. One on day at a food market, they had a food stall with different kinds of jams and on another day, at the same food market, they displayed only 6 different types of jam. They found was that while the big display table (with 24 jams) generated more interest, people were far less likely to purchase a jar of jam than in the case of the smaller display (about ten times less likely).
The study shows that while choice seems appealing, at first sight, choice overload generates the wrong results.
It was more than just sales volume affected - the bigger display of jams lead to a lower customer satisfaction than the smaller display, proving that choice can actually demotivate the customer.
* Have a smaller selection of snacks in the house
* Have a small set list of workouts
* Clothing - Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos - all have a ’uniform’
* Accessibility nudge (have it closer to hand) - reduce task demand
* Salience nudge (make it look more attractive)
* Social proof nudge (Show it’s popular with others)

Sunk cost fallacy
* The tendency to pursue a course of action, even after it has proved to be suboptimal, because resources have been invested in that course of action.
* E.g. staying with a partner because you’ve been with them for 10 years, even if the relationship is of poor quality.
* Loss aversion
* The tendency to pursue a course of action, even after it has proved to be suboptimal, because resources have been invested in that course of action.
* E.g. staying with a partner because you’ve been with them for 10 years, even if the relationship is of poor quality.

Decision fatigue - Too much choice
* The theory states we only have the mental energy to make a certain number of decisions in a day.
* This makes our choices less likely to be value-led / sensible in the evenings than they are in the mornings
* Never buy from Amazon after 8pm at night, don’t message your ex in an evening and choose your food/health choices in the morning.

Variety - the more flavours and varieties of food we have, the more we’re likely to eat. E.g. you’re more likely to eat more from a buffet that if you have one plate of a single type of food like pasta.
* Limit number of foods available

Forced choice model
Hanley:
A = go home
B = yearn and earn
C = unconditional R+

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Disclaimer: While we’re both behaviour analysts and qualified in our respective fields, this podcast is for education and information sharing only and should not be taken as personal, medical or behavioral advice or services.