On the 14th of January, I organized a seminar on "Smart choices: nudging and behavioral insights" with Dr. Carla Cavallo from Università Federico II.
The event was open to students & Faculty members of the Department of Food and Drug of the University of Parma, especially it was thought for the students of my course "CONSUMER RESEARCH: FOOD CHOICES AND HEALTHY EATING BEHAVIOR".
The speaker was Dr. Cavallo, currently a researcher from the University of Naples, who is involved in several projects about behavioral economics. After giving an introduction on the main aspects of bounded rationality, System I vs. System II, Irrational behaviours, Opportunity costs, Endowment Effect, Dr. Cavallo presented the main research studies, including one to promote the consumption of bitter vegetables. Her group of research used nudging techniques to test a possible strategy to promote the consumption of bitter vegetables, since they are particularly healthy but the majority of consumers is averse to them. In detail, the use of the default option has been found to be weakly capable of switching consumers' choices from the unhealthy option to the healthy one, in a real setting.
