Analysis of actual transactions in a grocery store shows that households enrolled in the U.S. government's Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP) purchase more unhealthy hedonic food, compared with households that do not receive SNAP benefits. SNAP households purchased more unhealthy hedonic food regardless of whether they used government funds or cash to pay for their purchases. Three follow-up simulated grocery shopping studies were designed to understand the mechanisms underlying this food consumption pattern by SNAP households. SNAP households, compared with households that do not receive SNAP benefits, reported stronger food craving. Stronger food craving was associated with lower unhealthiness perception of hedonic food. Overall, the results suggest that food cravings can reduce perceptions of unhealthiness and thus increase unhealthy food purchases. Interventions that reduce the effect of food cravings on shopping decisions might reduce unhealthy consumption.
BasuSanjaySeligmanHilary KesslerGardnerChristopherBhattacharyaJay (2014), “Ending EBT Subsidies for Sugar-Sweetened Beverages Could Reduce Obesity and Type 2 Diabetes,” Health Affairs, 33 (6), 1032–39.
2.
BerridgeKent C.HoChao-YiRichardJocelyn M.DiFeliceantonioAlexandra G. (2010), “The Tempted Brain Eats: Pleasure and Desire Circuits in Obesity and Eating Disorders,” Brain Research, 1350 (September), 43–64.
3.
BrayGeorge A.NielsenSamara JoyPopkinBarry M. (2004), “Consumption of High-Fructose Corn Syrup in Beverages May Play a Role in the Epidemic of Obesity,” American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 79 (4), 537–43.
4.
BrendlC. MiguelMarkmanArthur B.MessnerClaude (2001), “How Do Indirect Measures of Evaluation Work? Evaluating the Inference of Prejudice in the Implicit Association Test,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81 (5), 760–73.
5.
BrunerJerome S.GoodmanCecile C. (1947), “Value and Need as Organizing Factors in Perception,” Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 42 (1), 33–44.
6.
CarlsonKurt A.MeloyMargaret G.RussoJ. Edward (2006), “Leader-Driven Primacy: Using Attribute Order to Affect Consumer Choice,” Journal of Consumer Research, 32 (4), 513–18.
7.
ChatterjeePromotheshRoseRandall L. (2012), “Do Payment Mechanisms Change the Way Consumers Perceive Products?” Journal of Consumer Research, 38 (6), 1129–39.
8.
DesilverDrew (2023), “What the Data Says About Food Stamps in the U.S.,” Pew Research Center (July 19), https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/07/19/what-the-data-says-about-food-stamps-in-the-u-s/.
9.
DrewnowskiAdamSpecterS.E. (2004), “Poverty and Obesity: The Role of Energy Density and Energy Costs,” American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 79 (1), 6–16.
10.
DuboisDavidRuckerDerek D.GalinskyAdam D. (2010), “The Accentuation Bias: Money Literally Looms Larger (and Sometimes Smaller) to the Powerless,” Social Psychological and Personality Science, 1 (3), 199–205.
11.
DubowitzTamaraCohenDeborah A.HuangChristina Y.BeckmanRobin A.CollinsRebecca L. (2015), “Using a Grocery List Is Associated with a Healthier Diet and Lower BMI Among Very High-Risk Adults,” Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior, 47 (3), 259–64.
12.
EckertElke D.GottesmanIrving I.SwigartSusan E.CasperRegina C. (2018), “A 57-Year Follow-Up Investigation and Review of the Minnesota Study on Human Starvation and Its Relevance to Eating Disorders,” Archives of Psychology, 2 (3), https://www.archivesofpsychology.org/index.php/aop/article/view/50.
FeldmanJack M.LynchJohn G. (1988), “Self-Generated Validity and Other Effects of Measurement on Belief, Attitude, Intention, and Behavior,” Journal of Applied Psychology, 73 (3), 421–35.
15.
GaraskyStevenMbwanaKassimRomualdoAndresTenaglioAlexRoyManan (2016), “Foods Typically Purchased by Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) Households,” program report, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Food and Nutrition Service (November).
16.
GilbertDaniel T.GillMichael J.WilsonTimothy D. (2002), “The Future Is Now: Temporal Correction in Affective Forecasting,” Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 88 (1), 430–44.
17.
GrayKelsey FarsonFisherSarahLaufferSarah (2016), “Characteristics of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Households: Fiscal Year 2015,” Report No. SNAP-16-CHAR, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Food and Nutrition Service.
18.
HayesAndrew F. (2013), Introduction to Mediation, Moderation, and Conditional Process Analysis: A Regression-Based Approach. Guilford Press.
19.
HeathertonTodd F.PolivyJanet (1991), “Development and Validation of a Scale for Measuring State Self-Esteem,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 60 (6), 895–910.
20.
HoeflingAtillaLikowskiKatja U.DeutschRolandHäfnerMichaelSeibtBeateMühlbergerAndreas, Peter Weyers, and Fritz Strack (2009), “When Hunger Finds No Fault with Moldy Corn: Food Deprivation Reduces Food-Related Disgust,” Emotion, 9 (1), 50–58.
21.
KivetzRanZhengYuhuang (2006), “Determinants of Justification and Self-Control,” Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 135 (4), 572–87.
22.
LakensDaniël (2013), “Calculating and Reporting Effect Sizes to Facilitate Cumulative Science: A Practical Primer for t-Tests and ANOVAs,” Frontiers in Psychology, 4, 863.
23.
LeungCindy W.WillettWalter C.DingEric L. (2012), “Low-Income Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Participation Is Related to Adiposity and Metabolic Risk Factors,” The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 95 (1), 17–24.
24.
MaYuAilawadiKusum L.GrewalDhruv (2013), “Soda Versus Cereal and Sugar Versus Fat: Drivers of Healthful Food Intake and the Impact of Diabetes Diagnosis,” Journal of Marketing, 77 (3), 101–20.
25.
McGeeRobWilliamsSheila (2000), “Does Low Self-Esteem Predict Health Compromising Behaviors Among Adolescents?” Journal of Adolescence, 23 (5), 569–82.
26.
NarasimhanChakravarthiNeslinScott A.SenSubrata K. (1996), “Promotional Elasticities and Category Characteristics,” Journal of Marketing, 60 (2), 17–30.
OkadaErica Mina (2005), “Justification Effects on Consumer Choice of Hedonic and Utilitarian Goods,” Journal of Marketing Research, 42 (1), 43–53.
29.
PelchatMarcia LevinJohnsonAndreaChanRobinValdezJeffreyRaglandJ. Daniel (2004), “Images of Desire: Food-Craving Activation During fMRI,” Neuroimage, 23 (4), 1486–93.
30.
PrelecDrazenLoewensteinGeorge (1998), “The Red and the Black: Mental Accounting of Savings and Debt,” Marketing Science, 17 (1), 4–28.
31.
PrelecDrazenSimesterDuncan (2001), “Always Leave Home Without It: A Further Investigation of the Credit-Card Effect on Willingness to Pay,” Marketing Letters, 12 (1), 5–12.
RaghubirPriyaSrivastavaJoydeep (2008), “Monopoly Money: The Effect of Payment Coupling and Form on Spending Behavior,” Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 14 (3), 213–25.
34.
ReadDanielvan LeeuwenBarbara (1998), “Predicting Hunger: The Effects of Appetite and Delay on Choice,” Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 76 (2), 189–205.
35.
RickScott I.CryderCynthia E.LoewensteinGeorge (2008), “Tightwads and Spendthrifts,” Journal of Consumer Research, 34 (6), 767–82.
36.
RussoJ. EdwardCarlsonKurt A.MeloyMargaret G. (2006), “Choosing an Inferior Alternative,” Psychological Science, 17 (10), 899–904.
37.
ShahAvni M.EisenkraftNoahBettmanJames R.ChartrandTanya L. (2015), “Paper or Plastic?: How We Pay Influences Post-Transaction Connection,” Journal of Consumer Research, 42 (5), 688–708.
38.
SomanDilip (2001), “Effects of Payment Mechanism on Spending Behavior: The Role of Rehearsal and Immediacy of Payments,” Journal of Consumer Research, 27 (4), 460–74.
39.
SomanDilip (2003), “The Effect of Payment Transparency on Consumption: Quasi-Experiments from the Field,” Marketing Letters, 14 (October), 173–83.
40.
StuppyAnikaMeadNicole L.Van OsselaerStijn M.J. (2020), “I Am, Therefore I Buy: Low Self-Esteem and the Pursuit of Self-Verifying Consumption,” Journal of Consumer Research, 46 (5), 956–73.
WooldridgeJeffrey M. (2010), Econometric Analysis of Cross Section and Panel Data, 2nd ed. MIT Press.
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
