Only one item left? Heuristic Information Trumps Calorie Count When Supporting Healthy Snacking Under Low Self-Control

Pursuing the goal of a healthy diet may be challenging, especially when self-control resources are low. Yet many persuasive user interfaces fostering healthy choices are designed for situations with ample self-control, e.g. showing nutritional information to support reflective decision making. In this paper we propose that under low self-control, persuasive user interfaces need to rely on simple heuristic decision making to be successful. We report an experiment that tested this assumption in a 2 (low vs. high self-control) x 2 (calorie vs. heuristic information) design. The results reveal a significant interaction effect. Participants with low self-control resources chose the healthy snack more often when snacks were labelled with heuristic information than when they were labelled with calorie information. Both strategies were about equally successful for participants with high self-control. Exploiting situations of low self-control with heuristic information is a new and promising approach to designing persuasive technology for healthy eating.