We are witnessing a strange paradox today: We overconsume food to our detriment in the developed world while many barely have food to sustain themselves in the developing world. Sadly, this paradox is becoming more apparent and more poignant given double-digit price increases in some staples like wheat and rice in the past year.
This paradox carries over to many other areas where individuals overindulge or behave badly to their detriment, despite knowing about more positive alternative behaviours. We can look to everything from smoking, gambling and fossil fuel consumption to talking on the phone while driving to see examples of individuals knowingly acting against their best interests.
Often, we point to competing corporations whose aggressive marketing or management practices take the blame. Other times we point the finger at government for badly implementing regulation. All of this blame for bad behaviour continues to be spread around at the same time individuals are being bombarded by information to alert them to their bad practices and why they should curb them. Certainly, anyone marketing products that may have negative consequences needs to understand how to sort this out, if for no other reason than their own self-preservation.
So is all of the blame to be focused on corporations and government or did we, as individual consumers, have something to do with it? Research would suggest that the answer is “yes”: both are true. Let's explore the evidence when it comes to food.
It's true that we do respond to outside stimuli: Advertising does have an impact on what we select. I think all of us would recognize this. Beyond this, however, a whole raft of research in the past decade has really pointed the finger at us as individuals for our bad behaviour.
Some of the research is fascinating. Dan Putler, chairman of the marketing division at the Sauder School of Business at the University of British Columbia, and Betsy Frazao of the U.S. Department of Agriculture demonstrated that social marketing campaigns to reduce fat consumption did lead to lower red meat consumption, but an increase in ice cream, cheese and other fatty food consumption. Other research underscores how good intentions can often have negative consequences. Lauren Block, marketing professor at Baruch College at the City University of New York, has shown that the mere presence of a healthy item on a menu of unhealthy food choices “licenses” us to make unhealthy choices. When salads were on a menu, people were more likely to choose French fries.
And the list goes on. Brian Wansink, author and professor at Cornell University, found that two groups given different-sized buckets of stale popcorn in a movie responded by eating different amounts. The larger bucket holders inhaled 53 per cent more without realizing it. This applies to different-sized dinner plates. The conclusion is, we are programmed to eat when we can and amount is not governed by how hungry we really are. It gets even stranger as some researchers have noted: Being good in some choices leads us to be bad in others (we keep a skewed “balance sheet” in our brains) and when pressed to make difficult choices we default to bad ones (i.e., we choose a piece of cake rather than fruit salad when pressed). To make matters worse, we are very forgiving of our imperfections and bad choices.
What all the research leads us to conclude is that we have many difficult “decision rules” in our heads that are complex and interrelated. Simple solutions don't work in dealing with them.
So what can we do as companies with a conscience and governments with a social responsibility to encourage positive behaviour while preserving choice and competition?
First, we need to realize that humans are flawed decision makers and will not act in their own self interest even though they know what that is. This means we need to design marketing, product and process to not only influence attitudes but actual behaviour.
Beyond this, if we want people to limit their bad behaviour – like poor work practices that lead to higher accidents on job sites – we need to work together. True public-private partnership is required, not masses of additional punitive inspectors enforcing mounds of new rules.
Third, limiting access to things that are bad or ensuring that individuals have limited ability to act against their own best interest is a key step. But so-called “dry” or “no alcohol” counties in the United States discovered the folly of their ways when they abutted non-dry counties: The largest liquor stores were a few metres over the border.
Beyond limiting availability, companies and organizations need to deliver easy, practical alternatives. Humans will continue behaviours if confronted with difficulties in switching. Practical solutions mean tasty, convenient alternatives – not “wholesome” impractical ones. This is why diet colas are successful: They deliver the same taste without the calories and are equally as accessible. Practical solutions also mean looking “upstream” for solutions the consumer doesn't even have to deal with. U.S. fat consumption dropped between the mid-1970s and 1980s through revised trimming practices at meat processing plants. They got rid of the fat before the consumer even had to decide.
Practical also means easy. If you beat up the consumer with information and difficult alternatives, they revert to old bad behaviours. Keep the point-of-sale information clear and the availability widespread and you will win. Make it difficult and everyone loses.
Another reality beyond ease of use: It takes time and persistence to really change behaviour. Getting people to actually wear seat belts was not a year-long endeavour. It took decades of persistent and co-ordinated effort by manufacturers (design improvements and warning systems), government (gotten a ticket lately?) and health care organizations to realize success.
My final point is that as companies, product developers, consumers, governments and as societies, we need to face the hard fact that more is not always better. This tenet of our economic thinking needs to be curbed. Portion control and elimination of “supersizing” is critical. With this point, and taking my own advice, I will end.
Daniel F. Muzyka is dean and RBC Financial Group professor of entrepreneurship at the Sauder School of Business at the University of British Columbia.
© The Globe and Mail
