The “organic” path to obesity? Organic claims influence calorie judgments and exercise recommendations

By Jonathon P. Schuldt, Norbert Schwarz. Judgment and Decision Making, 2010

220 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Labeling a food as “organic” entails a claim about its production but is silent on its calorie content. Nevertheless, people infer that organic cookies are lower in calories and can be eaten more often than conventional cookies (Study 1). These inferences are observed even when the nutrition label conveys identical calorie content and are more pronounced among perceivers high on pro-environmentalism. Moreover, when evaluating a person with a weight-loss goal, forgoing exercise is deemed more acceptable when the person has just chosen organic rather than conventional dessert (Study 2). These results reflect an “organic/natural”-“healthy” association that is capable of biasing everyday judgments about diet and exercise.

Subfields: Applied Psychology, Ecology, Sensory Systems

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/20c53c1bb6fa3ff6fe5340841411721cfd4ea595

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Applied Psychology

In Sensory Systems

Norbert Schwarz

Citations in the corpus

Identity‐Based Motivation: Implications for Health and Health Disparities (2014, background): “Other identities that have been associated with health-relevant behaviors include weight (McFerran et al., 2009), dieter (Irmak, Vallen, & Robinson, 2011; McFerran et al., 2010) and even a " Green " environmentalist identity (Schuldt & Schwarz, 2010).”
From food waste to value-added surplus products (VASP): Consumer acceptance of a novel food product category (2018, background): “On the other hand, individuals overgeneralize associations between nutrients and the health benefits related to such nutrients, which in turn leads them to perceive self‐benefits from foods that are labeled healthy (Cornish, 2012; Schuldt & Schwarz, 2010).”
The “Fair Trade” Effect (2012, background): “…results appear to show an opposite pattern: those with strong ethical food values, for whom the ethics of food production is more personally relevant, appear to be processing more heuristically rather than systematically (see also Schuldt & Schwarz, 2010; Chernev, 2011; Wan-Chen Lee et al., 2011).”
When Do Consumers Avoid Imperfections? Superficial Packaging Damage as a Contamination Cue (2016, background): “Furthermore, we extend previous work on the biasing effects of labeling a product as organic (Schuldt and Schwarz 2010) by demonstrating that in this context, organic branding can reduce bias, making superficial imperfection acceptable to consumers (Study 3).”
Wealth and Welfare: Divergent Moral Reactions to Ethical Consumer Choices (2016, background): “In contrast to the wealthy or even middle class, however, life for the poor has worsened (Shaefer and Edin 2012).”
Eat organic – Feel good? The relationship between organic food consumption, health concern and subjective wellbeing (2018, background): “Organic labeled products are, for instance, perceived as being lower in calories (Schuldt & Schwarz, 2010) and healthier than their non-organic counterparts (Ellison, Duff, Wang, &White, 2016; Sörqvist et al., 2015).”