Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience (Mar 2023)

Neural mechanisms of expert persuasion on willingness to pay for sugar

  • Ioannis Ntoumanis,
  • Alina Davydova,
  • Julia Sheronova,
  • Ksenia Panidi,
  • Vladimir Kosonogov,
  • Anna N. Shestakova,
  • Iiro P. Jääskeläinen,
  • Iiro P. Jääskeläinen,
  • Vasily Klucharev

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3389/fnbeh.2023.1147140
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 17

Abstract

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Introduction: Sugar consumption is associated with many negative health consequences. It is, therefore, important to understand what can effectively influence individuals to consume less sugar. We recently showed that a healthy eating call by a health expert can significantly decrease the willingness to pay (WTP) for sugar-containing food. Here, we investigate which aspects of neural responses to the same healthy eating call can predict the efficacy of expert persuasion.Methods: Forty-five healthy participants performed two blocks of a bidding task, in which they had to bid on sugar-containing, sugar-free and non-edible products, while their electroencephalography (EEG) was recorded. In between the two blocks, they listened to a healthy eating call by a nutritionist emphasizing the risks of sugar consumption.Results: We found that after listening to the healthy eating call, participants significantly decreased their WTP for sugar-containing products. Moreover, a higher intersubject correlation of EEG (a measure of engagement) during listening to the healthy eating call resulted in a larger decrease in WTP for sugar-containing food. Whether or not a participant’s valuation of a product was highly influenced by the healthy eating call could also be predicted by spatiotemporal patterns of EEG responses to the healthy eating call, using a machine learning classification model. Finally, the healthy eating call increased the amplitude of the P300 component of the visual event-related potential in response to sugar-containing food.Disussion: Overall, our results shed light on the neural basis of expert persuasion and demonstrate that EEG is a powerful tool to design and assess health-related advertisements before they are released to the public.

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