Study suggests why portraying humans as healthy machines can backfire
ANI |
Updated: Feb 11, 2021 13:37 IST
Washington [US], February 11 (ANI): Researchers from the University of Amsterdam and Stanford University published a new paper in the Journal of Marketing that explores how human-as-machine representations affect consumers--specifically their eating behavior and health.
The study, forthcoming in the Journal of Marketing, is titled 'Portraying Humans as Machines to Promote Health: Unintended Risks, Mechanisms, and Solutions' and is authored by Andrea Weihrauch and Szu-Chi Huang.
To combat obesity, governments, marketers, and consumer welfare organizations often encourage consumers to make food choices more rationally.
One strategy used is to leverage human-as-machine representations--portraying humans as machines. This approach tries to leverage people's existing associations about machines--that machines make decisions rationally--to help them approach food in a machine-like manner, with the goal of encouraging healthier choices.