The healthy equals sustainable heuristic

The Halo effect refers to a cognitive bias in which a positive attribute in one domain influences the judgement of another domain. In the field of food research, so called food halos have been described e.g., for the relationship between healthiness and taste attributions of food or between organic labels and reduced perceived calorie content. The present study extends previous research on food halos to investigate whether there is a ‘healthy equals sustainable heuristic’. The objective is to investigate how beliefs about the healthiness of a food affect the beliefs about its’ sustainability and vice versa. Moreover, the present study aims to examine moderators of these effects The sample will include 710 participants representative for the Austrian population. Participants will see images of food with either high or low health label scores and rate sustainability. Equivalently, they will see food images with either high or low sustainability label scores and rate healthiness. Additionally, they will fill in questionnaires.