- PhD student
- Date
- Tuesday 10 Mar 2020, 13:00 - 14:00
- Type
- Seminar
- Spoken Language
- English
- Room
- Room 4.01
- Location
- International Institute of Social Studies
In this Research in Progress Seminar, Margarita de Vries Mecheva will explain her research into the effects of cognitive ('emojis') and affective (peer behaviour) nudges on primary school childrens’ snacking behavior in Jakarta, Indonesia, a country commencing its nutrition transition, and with respect to healthy eating interventions.
Healthy banana or unhealthy cake?
In a lab-in-the-field experiment, children were given a binary choice between a healthy (banana) or a unhealthy snack (chocolate covered marshmallow cake). Mecheva tested for the effect of smiley labels encouraging the healthy snack, as well as of observing healthy and unhealthy snacking of peers in a treatment involving child actors.
On top of child-level treatments, some groups of children saw an educational video about healthy eating, showing the interaction of information provision and nudging.
Results
Her research finds that while the label increases the uptake of the healthy snack, the adverse effect of observing a peer eating the unhealthy snack is substantially larger.
Conversely, the healthy peer treatment is insignificant and small. There is little evidence that these treatment effects interact with the provision of information via the nutrition video.
About the speaker
Margarita de Vries Mecheva is a PhD researcher working in the Development Economics research group at International Institute of Social Studies.
- More information
The Research in Progress seminars provide an informal venue for presentations of ongoing research by ISS scholars (including staff and PhD researchers) and other scholars from the wider development studies community.