Experts or Peers? The Influence of Different Social Endorsers on Reducing Sugar Consumption

Introduction: Nowadays, more and more people are suffering from non-communicable diseases, that are considered to be one of the main reasons for the rapid increasement of mortality rate worldwide. One of the main modifiable risk factors that people are capable of adjusting, is their daily consumption of sugar. This research is dedicated to explore the influence of different social endorsers – peer or expert – on the decrease of willingness-to-pay for sugar-containing products. Methods: Study I and Study II included eighty-four healthy participants, that are eating products that contain sugar on a daily basis. They were evaluating their willingness-to-pay for sugar-containing, sugar-free and non-edible products. Between two iterations of bidding tasks, they were exposed to audial healthy eating intervention that provided information about the negative consequences of excessive sugar consumption. Results: All types of the audial healthy eating interventions – peer and expert – significantly decreased participants’ willingness-to-pay for sugar-containing products. However, there were no support found that peer persuasion is more effective in terms of food nudging than expert persuasion. Conclusion: The present research contributes to this research field by providing additional techniques, which allows to decrease willingness-to-pay for sugar-containing products – the healthy eating call with the influence of peer social norms, as they are presented by the referent to a participant group.