Promoting the consumption of meat substitutes with mental accounting

Last registered on January 11, 2022

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Promoting the consumption of meat substitutes with mental accounting
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0008752
Initial registration date
January 11, 2022

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published
January 11, 2022, 9:22 AM EST

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Locations

Region

Primary Investigator

Affiliation
UGA, INRAE

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Affiliation
TSE-R, Université Toulouse 1 Capitole

Additional Trial Information

Status
In development
Start date
2022-01-14
End date
2022-02-28
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
Meat consumption is responsible for environmental (carbon emissions) ang health (cancers, cardio-vascular diseases, etc.) negative externalities. Using an online questionnaire, our first objective is to investigate consumers’ willingness to switch from beef hamburgers to plant-based vegetarian hamburgers, meat-like hamburgers or cultured meat hamburgers. This first objective is therefore a replication of Carlsson et al. (2021)’s study.
Second, and contrary to Carlsson et al. (2021)’s study, our second objective is to investigate, using treatments, the potential of mental accounting (informing consumers about the carbon footprint of each type of hamburger) to foster the adoption of meat substitutes.

Carlsson, F., Kataria, M., & Lampi, E. (2021). How much does it take? Willingness to switch to meat substitutes.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Andersson, Henrik and Benjamin Ouvrard. 2022. "Promoting the consumption of meat substitutes with mental accounting." AEA RCT Registry. January 11. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.8752-1.0
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
We implement, in addition to a baseline group that we do not manipulate, two treatment groups in which we add information (based on mental accounting) to assess whether or not respondents are willing to subtitutes meat burgers by veggie burgers, meat-like burgers or cultured meat burgers.
The information we add is based on the carbon content of each type of hamburger, that we use in two ways:
i) we inform about the carbon content of each type of hamburger, expressed in percentage of the current average of carbon emitted each day by a representative French individual due to his/her food intake; or
ii) we inform about the carbon content of what the rest of the respondent’ food intake in a day should generate in terms of carbon emissions after having eaten a given type of hamburger, expressed in percentage of the current average of carbon emitted each day by a representative French individual due to his/her food intake.
Intervention Start Date
2022-01-14
Intervention End Date
2022-02-28

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Our main outcome variables are the choice of a type of hamburger (beef meat, veggie, meat-like or cultured meat) and the willingness-to-accept a substitute (expressed in euros).
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
The rest of our survey consists of socio-economic questions and others to measure respondents’ knowledge of carbon footprint due to food intake, openness, environmental preferences and food habits.
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
We extend Carlsson et al. (2021) pprocedure.
Respondents are invited to connect on a web platform to answer our survey. After having signed an informed consent, they are informed that it is a study on food habits and only non-vegetarian respondents will be part of the study (pre-selection made by the survey company ENOV/We Fieldwork).

Respondents are presented with hypothetical situations (five blocks), where they have to imagine they are in a restaurant. In the first three blocks of situations, they have to choose between two types of hamburgers worth €15: a beef hamburger or a substitute (veggie burger, meat-like burger or cultured meat burger). The three situations are proposed in a random order to control for order effects.
Once they have chosen their preferred option between the two, they are then asked what would be the price at which they would agree to take the other option.

In the second set of blocks (two additional situations), we focus only on vegetarian burgers versus cultured meat burgers.

In addition to this baseline treatment, we consider two additional groups where:
i) in the first one, we add information regarding the carbon content of each type of hamburger, expressed in percentage of the current average of carbon emitted each day by a representative French individual due to his/her food intake;
ii) in the second one, we add information regarding the carbon content of what the rest of the respondent’ food intake in a day should generate in terms of carbon emissions after having eaten a given type of hamburger, expressed in percentage of the current average of carbon emitted each day by a representative French individual due to his/her food intake.
This additional piece of information is added after the choice of a type of hamburger, and before indicating the price at which they would agree to take the other option.

Respondents participate only once in a treatment.

The respondents will be selected from the panel of respondents of ENOV/We Fieldwork (https://enov.fr/), a survey company. ENOV/We Fieldwork will ensure that we are in line with the RGPD legislation.
Experimental Design Details
Randomization Method
Randomization done by the survey company Enov/We Fieldwork.
Randomization Unit
Individual
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
NA
Sample size: planned number of observations
400 respondents per group will answer our survey. We will also conduct a pilot with our baseline treatment on 100 respondents. Our final sample will therefore comprise 1300 respondents (100 + 3x400).
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
400 per treatment.
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
TSE Research Ethics Committee for Experimental Research
IRB Approval Date
2022-01-11
IRB Approval Number
N/A

Post-Trial

Post Trial Information

Study Withdrawal

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Intervention

Is the intervention completed?
No
Data Collection Complete
Data Publication

Data Publication

Is public data available?
No

Program Files

Program Files
Reports, Papers & Other Materials

Relevant Paper(s)

Reports & Other Materials