How a shift in menu position increases an item’s popularity by over 50%

Choice architecture: The variety of ways in which information can be presented to a consumer, with the main goal being to influence the decision-making process.

Nudge: Any component of choice architecture that can predictably change behavior; Nudges must be easy and cheap to avoid and do not include laws or instructions.

Serial position effect: This effect describes the relative ease of remembering items at the beginning and end of a list, but the difficulty in remembering the middle items.

In 2016, an estimated 1.9 billion adults globally were diagnosed as being overweight, 650 million of those being obese.¹ Given that overweight and obesity are generally caused by a caloric surplus and a decrease in physical activity, can nudges be used to combat this?

The importance of sequential choices

Previous studies have investigated how decision-making is affected by the order in which we encounter things. However, these stimuli tend to be presented sequentially and their dependent variable generally isn’t “choice”. Another study found that when items are not identical, people tend to prefer options that are in the middle rather than at the edges.² 

Can we change outcomes via menu position?

Restaurant trade publications had been advocating for placing items that one wants to sell at the beginning and end of the menus. However at the time of this paper’s publishing in 2011, there had been no research to back up these claims. The investigative team sought to unearth whether or not order really matters on a menu and how to leverage that into a nudge that could reduce obesity. 

In a controlled setting

The first study involved 240 students, ages 19-32, from Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Israel. The researchers created four versions of a menu from an Israeli pizza chain; each differed in the order of items presented within a category. Prices were not shown. 

There were 4 categories: Appetizers (4), Entrées (10), Soft Drinks (6), and Desserts (8), for a total of 28 items. The menu versions are as follows:

1. Baseline – Created with an arbitrary design
2. Mirror - This version reversed the order of the Baseline within each category
3. Inside-Out Base - Researchers reversed the order from the Baseline within the top half and bottom half of each category. In other words, items in the middle were now at the extreme ends (beginning and/or end) and vice versa
4. Inside-Out Mirror - The same methodology as Inside-Out Base was replicated but on the Mirror version instead of the Baseline version.

Each participant was asked to choose a single food item from each category with the possibility of winning a real meal at the pizzeria; the meal would consist of the participant’s exact menu choices.

In the real world

Given that Study 1 was conducted under a controlled setting, the research team decided to create a second study that would evaluate how people choose items under real-world circumstances. Study 2 occurred in a Tel Aviv cafe with real customers, and unlike Study 1, the menus showed prices. The cafe collaborated with the investigators to record customer orders and alter the menus according to the study plan.

Their menu consisted of 60 items, but for simplicity, only three categories were manipulated: Coffee with alcohol (4 items), Soft drinks (6 items), and Desserts (10 items). Staff at the cafe discretely recorded all orders during the period of the study. Unlike Study 1, only the Baseline and Inside-Out versions were created; the former represented the standard menu and the latter only included changes in positions from the 3 aforementioned target categories. Each form was presented for 15 days, alternating between the two.

The EAST framework

Throughout these investigations, the EAST Framework informed the researchers’ decisions. The Behavioral Insights Team created this framework in 2012 as a means to improve public policy via nudging and social engineering, among other psychological and economic principles. EAST stands for the four pillars of the framework, which recommends that a policy be Easy to implement, Attractive to the target group, Social (it must utilize our desire for approval from others), and Timely (a policy should be presented when people are most receptive to it). Creating an intervention in the form of a menu allowed the interventions to include all of the EAST components.

Study 1: Popularity of Items at Beginning and End of Menus Increased by 56%

Within the categories, the measured advantage of an item being placed at an extreme averaged at 56%. All but a minority of items benefitted from being placed at the beginning or end of its category list, no matter its popularity. In fact, even the options that were less popular had an advantage of 54% when placed at an extreme end. ²

Study 2: Popularity of Items at Beginning and End of Menus Increased by 55%

Unlike Study 1, only a few items showed an advantage of being at an extreme position. This advantage at the category level equates to a mean of 55%. Only the differences found in the Soft Drinks category were deemed significant. Compared to Study 1, items had a larger gain in popularity when moved from the exact middle to an extreme end (55%), compared to when it moved from the near middle to the near-end (51%). Researchers conclude by emphasizing that these findings are for situations when items are presented simultaneously, and when position refers to a spatial position rather than a temporal one. Findings from studies on other theories, such as the serial position effect, cannot be compared to this one because for those, the position is temporal and the dependent variables are memory rather than choice.

• Individuals were free to choose what to order and whether they wanted to leave the study
• Obesity and overweight are timely and dire problems, and studies like this could improve the health of many
• The authors failed to acknowledge additional factors for overweight and obesity, such as health complications or physical disability

How Loss Aversion Affects Our Perceptions of Weight – If interventions like the one described in this study are implemented, how would people feel about losing weight? Research suggests that we react to weight as we would with money: we may have a stronger reaction to weight gain than weight loss. Read more to discover a thoughtful reflection on how loss aversion can play out in unexpected ways.

Increasing The Pull Of The Future Self – It was mentioned how the study’s authors overlook a multitude of factors that influence overweight and obesity. One such factor is when people routinely discount future outcomes; this article discusses studies that have addressed the issue and ways to overcome it.

Can Nudge Theory Be Applied To Public Health? – Do nudges like food order really affect change in the real world? Professor Mike Kelly, an Honorary Senior Visiting Fellow at the University of Cambridge’s of Public Health, says that “we need more research, especially in terms of physical activity.” Click the link to read more and watch his video interview.