Loss Aversion of Time: Serving School Lunches Faster without Impacting Meal Experience. Issue 6 (2nd November 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Sharma, Amit; Moon, Joonho; Bailey-Davis, Lisa
• Is Part Of: Ecology of food and nutrition. Volume 57:Issue 6(2018)
• Page Start: 456
• Page End: 472
• Publication Date: 2018-11-02
• Subjects: Loss aversion -- meal experience -- school lunch -- time; Nutrition -- Periodicals; Food -- Periodicals; 641
• DOI: 10.1080/03670244.2018.1544562
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0367-0244

Abstract

ABSTRACT: Loss aversion has been extensively studied in economics, but there is less discussion of it in the context of time. Results from a field experiment conducted in a U.S. public school lunch cafeteria suggest that students could be loss averse to time and that interventions, such as a pre-plated service lane could increase the speed of service and guide students to make better food choices. Faster, pre-plated service lanes may leverage loss aversion bias, be beneficial for larger schools, reduce wait time for students, and thereby increase their satisfaction with the service process.