The Study
The color red may act like an implicit avoidance cue for consumers, similar to when stopping in front of a red stop sign. The study builds upon this automaticity principle by investigating the implicit meaning of color (red vs. green) in an approach-avoidance task with healthy and unhealthy food items.
Study Design and Results
The study examined the joint evaluative effects of color and food: Participants had to categorize food items by approach-avoidance reactions, according to their healthfulness. Task-irrelevant red or green circles surrounded items. The authors found that the implicit meaning of the traffic light colors influenced participants' reactions to the food items. The color red (compared to green) facilitated automatic avoidance reactions to unhealthy foods. By contrast, approach behavior towards healthy food items was not moderated by color.
Implications
The findings suggest that traffic light colors can act as implicit cues that guide automatic behavioral reactions to food. These cues can be used in food retailing or restaurants: Red labels may strengthen avoidance tendencies when paired with unhealthy foods (such as sausages, burgers, donuts), whereas green labels may not strengthen approach tendencies when paired with healthy foods (such as vegetables).
Contact
Department of Sport & Health Management
Prof. Dr. Jörg Königstorfer
Secretary: Mirjam Eggers
Uptown München Campus D
Georg-Brauchle-Ring 60/62
80992 Munich
Phone: +49.89.289.24559
Fax +49.89.289.24642