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Research Article

Harnessing adolescent values to motivate healthier eating

Christopher J. Bryan, David S. Yeager, Cintia P. Hinojosa, Aimee Chabot, Holly Bergen, Mari Kawamura, and Fred Steubing
  1. aUniversity of Chicago Booth School of Business, Chicago, IL 60637;
  2. bDepartment of Psychology, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712;
  3. cDuke University Fuqua School of Business, Durham, NC 27708;
  4. dDepartment of Psychology, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093;
  5. eCanyon Middle School, New Braunfels, TX 78130

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PNAS September 27, 2016 113 (39) 10830-10835; first published September 12, 2016; https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1604586113
Christopher J. Bryan
aUniversity of Chicago Booth School of Business, Chicago, IL 60637;
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  • For correspondence: christopher.bryan@chicagobooth.edu dyeager@utexas.edu
David S. Yeager
bDepartment of Psychology, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712;
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  • For correspondence: christopher.bryan@chicagobooth.edu dyeager@utexas.edu
Cintia P. Hinojosa
aUniversity of Chicago Booth School of Business, Chicago, IL 60637;
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Aimee Chabot
cDuke University Fuqua School of Business, Durham, NC 27708;
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Holly Bergen
dDepartment of Psychology, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093;
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Mari Kawamura
dDepartment of Psychology, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093;
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Fred Steubing
eCanyon Middle School, New Braunfels, TX 78130
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  1. Edited by Julie Lumeng, University of Michigan, and accepted by Editorial Board Member Susan T. Fiske July 23, 2016 (received for review March 19, 2016)

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Significance

Behavioral science has rarely offered effective strategies for changing adolescent health behavior. One limitation of previous approaches may be an overemphasis on long-term health outcomes as the focal source of motivation. The present research uses a rigorous randomized trial to evaluate an approach that aligns healthy behavior with values about which adolescents already care: feeling like a socially conscious, autonomous person worthy of approval from one’s peers. It improved the health profile of snacks and drinks participants chose in an ostensibly unrelated context and did so because it caused adolescents to construe the healthy behavior as being aligned with prominent adolescent values. This suggests a route to an elusive result: effective motivation for adolescent behavior change.

Abstract

What can be done to reduce unhealthy eating among adolescents? It was hypothesized that aligning healthy eating with important and widely shared adolescent values would produce the needed motivation. A double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled experiment with eighth graders (total n = 536) evaluated the impact of a treatment that framed healthy eating as consistent with the adolescent values of autonomy from adult control and the pursuit of social justice. Healthy eating was suggested as a way to take a stand against manipulative and unfair practices of the food industry, such as engineering junk food to make it addictive and marketing it to young children. Compared with traditional health education materials or to a non–food-related control, this treatment led eighth graders to see healthy eating as more autonomy-assertive and social justice-oriented behavior and to forgo sugary snacks and drinks in favor of healthier options a day later in an unrelated context. Public health interventions for adolescents may be more effective when they harness the motivational power of that group’s existing strongly held values.

  • adolescent health behavior
  • construal
  • field experiment
  • intertemporal choice
  • temporal discounting

Footnotes

  • ↵1To whom correspondence may be addressed. Email: christopher.bryan{at}chicagobooth.edu or dyeager{at}utexas.edu.
  • Author contributions: C.J.B., D.S.Y., C.P.H., A.C., H.B., M.K., and F.S. designed research; C.J.B., D.S.Y., C.P.H., A.C., H.B., M.K., and F.S. performed research; C.J.B., D.S.Y., C.P.H., H.B., and M.K. analyzed data; and C.J.B., D.S.Y., and C.P.H. wrote the paper.

  • The authors declare no conflict of interest.

  • This article is a PNAS Direct Submission. J.L. is a Guest Editor invited by the Editorial Board.

  • Data deposition: All data are available on Open Science, https://osf.io/rxa93.

  • This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1073/pnas.1604586113/-/DCSupplemental.

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Harnessing adolescent values boosts healthy eating
Christopher J. Bryan, David S. Yeager, Cintia P. Hinojosa, Aimee Chabot, Holly Bergen, Mari Kawamura, Fred Steubing
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Sep 2016, 113 (39) 10830-10835; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1604586113

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Harnessing adolescent values boosts healthy eating
Christopher J. Bryan, David S. Yeager, Cintia P. Hinojosa, Aimee Chabot, Holly Bergen, Mari Kawamura, Fred Steubing
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Sep 2016, 113 (39) 10830-10835; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1604586113
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Article Classifications

  • Social Sciences
  • Psychological and Cognitive Sciences
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: 113 (39)
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  • Article
    • Abstract
    • Autonomy
    • Social Justice and Beyond-the-Self Aims
    • Harnessing Adolescent Values to Motivate Healthy Eating
    • The Present Research
    • Results
    • Discussion
    • Method
    • Determining Sample Size
    • Analyses of Interaction with BMI
    • Acknowledgments
    • Footnotes
    • References
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