Shopping with hand-held basket encourages poor choices: Study
Using a shopping cart instead of a much smaller basket can help you make healthier choices as you cruise down the aisles. At least that’s the thinking behind a recent study in the Journal of Marketing Research.
Watching people as they stocked up in the grocery store, the researchers found that people who used hand-held baskets instead of those insidious oversized carts were more than three times as likely to choose unhealthy over healthy food items.
Why, exactly, is a little complicated, but essentially the notion is that bodily sensations can influence our thoughts and emotions.
In this case, the researchers maintain that the act of flexing your arm, as required by the basket, somehow encourages you to choose smaller, easier and generally less healthy items, while extending your arm, as you do when you push a cart, has the opposite effect.
Although you might think that grabbing a basket would reduce the number of items you can pack in, it’s all about choosing instant gratification as opposed to sticking with long-term goals, the researchers maintain. Shoppers living hand-to-mouth, so to speak, are more likely to pick up unhealthy products like chips, candy and soft drinks.
Hmmm. When I use the little red basket I do tend to be in a hurry and therefore may be less likely to give much thought about what I am putting into it.
But I would have thought that cart people are more careful because they’re not simply shopping for themselves, are generaly working off some sort of list, and don’t want to have to come back the next day.
But what do I know?
When you go grocery shopping, do you use a cart or a basket? Does either impact your buying decisions?
By Gordon Powers, MSN Money
* Follow Gordon on Twitter here.
Posted by: Donald Rogerson | Jul 27, 2021 8:07:36 AM
Don't you think that the basket people (Singles) are in a rush and are shopping for items that can be quickly made ready for small meals, fast type foods are generally less healthy than potatoes and carrots .. I think, next time they should find out what the basket person's life style is...
Posted by: blood | Jul 29, 2021 4:28:03 PM
Maybe the person that shops with a cart is doing real wk food where as the person with a basket is just getting things that are missing or a quick fix over. Just to tie in for the wk.
Posted by: James | Aug 20, 2021 6:12:34 PM
Not for me!