Food Norms and Preferences in Schools: is there Pluralistic Ignorance?

albani, viviana and bardsley, nicholas and garcia-gallego, aurora and georgantzis, nikos and nocella, giuseppe (2018): Food Norms and Preferences in Schools: is there Pluralistic Ignorance?

Abstract

We use behavioural games to identify preferences, beliefs about others’ preferences, and higher-order beliefs, amongst adolescents at a UK comprehensive school. Pupils systematically under-rate the attractiveness of ‘healthy’, and over-rate that of ‘unhealthy’, foods. The bias is consistently in the direction of higher-order beliefs. Pluralistic ignorance would explain much of the results and seems clearly instantiated in one case.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: social norms, behavioural games, childrens’ diets, experiment
• Subjects: C - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods > C9 - Design of Experiments > C91 - Laboratory, Individual Behavior; C - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods > C9 - Design of Experiments > C93 - Field Experiments; Z - Other Special Topics > Z1 - Cultural Economics ; Economic Sociology ; Economic Anthropology

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