NudgeMe Study 2: Personalized Digital (Just-in-Time) Nudges and Transparency Effects

This lab study assessed the impact of transparency on the effectiveness and mechanisms of personalized digital “just-in-time” (JIT) nudges for promoting healthier food choices online.<br><br>

Research Questions:
<ol>
<li>Does transparency moderate effects of personalized (i.e., user-matched) digital JIT nudges on healthier food choice (i.e., nudge effectiveness and proportion of healthier food purchases)?
<li>To what extent does perceived acceptability, experienced autonomy, and psychological reactance differ between transparent versus non-transparent forms of personalized (i.e., user-matched) and non-personalized (i.e., mismatched) digital JIT nudges?
</ol>
The study had a fully between-subjects design with Nudge Personalization (Non-personalized versus Personalized) and Nudge Transparency (Non-transparent versus Transparent) as experimental factors. In total, there were 4 treatment arms (P-T-; P+T-; P-T+; P+T+). Participants completed an online grocery shopping task on a mock smartphone retail application (the MAND app), and answered a series of questionnaires (Qualtrics)