Drivers and Effects of Food Choices

The sub-project "Drivers and Effects of Food Choices" deals with the possible consequences of the two extreme scenarios "No Land" and "No Trade" for consumers, institutions and our society as a whole. The change in our current food system implied by both scenarios will lead to drastic changes in the price, quality, variety and availability of food and requires both an adjustment of individual preferences and the institutions of the food system. We are also investigating how the overlap of both scenarios "No Land" and "No Trade" and the simultaneous radical change in the production and supply of food itself can become a driver of social transformation and, under certain circumstances, a threat to social cohesion.

The first goal is to identify which individual factors determine how humans adapt their food preferences under rapidly changing societal and ecological conditions. For instance, what is the role of one’s biography, education, cultural understanding of food, group identity, personality traits, or social position? Particular attention is paid to potential differences in the decision-making behavior of consumers, experts and politicians, affecting how the challenges of the food system are dealt with at the political level. In addition, we look at the consequences of extreme upheavals in the food system on society, i.e. to what extent divergent food preferences shape social group identities and thus lead to group conflicts. Does it make a difference whether a diet was chosen voluntarily or imposed by exogenous circumstances? And what measures can be taken to counteract this trend? The measures at the institutional level are of particular interest in order to sustain social cohesion.

These questions are investigated using behavioral economic lab experiments. Behavioral economics is a relatively young discipline within economics that examines how people make economic decisions, whether they act more intuitively or rationally, and what impact their decisions have on themselves and others. Findings from psychology and other social sciences are explicitly taken into account.

Text: H. Freudenreich, T. Brück (both IGZ)