Can behavioural economics make us healthier and more ethical?

This thesis discusses potential motivations behind unhealthy or unethical behaviour. With the experimental method and drawing on insights from behavioural economics, it identifies features of the decision making process which enhance the appearance of unethical or unhealthy behaviour. The aim is that of informing policy makers or future interventions on the ways to improve these behaviours. The first chapter "Groups and Socially Responsible Production: An Experiment with Farmers", is about the main drivers of entrepreneurs' social responsibility. With a lab in the field experiment with farmers in Italy, I study how and whether group decision making affects the social responsibility and the ethicality of production choices. Does corporate social responsibility decrease when corporate decisions are taken by several people (a corporate board) instead of an individual entrepreneur? And if so, why? I ask to 126 farmers in Tuscany to choose between an ecological and non-ecological but more profitable product to use in their farm. To study the effect of collective decision making, I introduce two experimental variations in a 2x2 design: (i) the number of people responsible for the decision (one vs three) and (ii) the number of people receiving a payoff from the decision (one vs three). I find that collective payoff leads to less socially responsible decisions, possibly because it provides them with the moral wiggle room to be less pro-social. On the other hand, sharing the responsibility of the decision with others does not change behaviour in this setting, meaning that there is no diffusion of responsibility, in contrast to what has been found in laboratory experiments. To shed light on the external validity of my results, I find that my experimental measure of social responsibility correlates with measures of social responsibility outside the lab. The second chapter "Rewarding with a food makes that food more appealing", studies with a field experiment the impact of using a food as reward. The chapter is joint work with Jan Michael Bauer, Michele Belot and Marina Schroder. Parents often use sweet and calorie dense foods to reward their children. We hypothesize that such practices may contribute to the formation of unhealthy food preferences. To test this hypothesis, we conducted a randomized field experiment with 214 children in 3 schools in Germany. In the treatment classes, children were asked to complete a cognitive task in 6 visits over 3 weeks, and received dried apples as a reward. The task consisted of counting a number of random dots in several different pictures. In the control group classes, children received the dried apple unconditionally. Receiving the food for solving the tasks might provoke a positive association of the food with the positive feeling of achievement. It could also be that having to provide effort to obtain a food enhances the value of that food. We split the treatment groups into two, varying the number of pictures between the two treatment groups. This allows us to identify the role of effort in driving a change in preference for dried apple. Our results show that rewarding children with food does increase their liking for the food reward. Also, increasing the effort required to obtain the reward does not impact the liking. These findings suggest that parents and carers should avoid using unhealthy food as rewards and may even use this mechanism to increase the liking of healthy food by using such foods as rewards. The third chapter, "Stress and Food Preferences: A Lab Experiment with Low Income Mothers", discusses the influence of stress on food preferences. Jointly with Michele Belot, Jonathan James and Nicolai Vitt, we conduct a lab experiment with 196 low-income mothers in the UK to study the impact of acute stress on immediate and planned food choices. We propose two channels through which stress might affect food choices: (i) by affecting individuals' preferences and (ii) by affecting their ability to make sound decisions. With a novel incentivised stress task designed to mimic stressors often experienced by mothers from a low socio-economic status, we experimentally induce acute stress on a group of participants. We take measurements of participants' salivary cortisol and heart rate over the course of the experimental sessions to assess the stressfulness of the stress task. Afterwards, we ask them to purchase food items in a "virtual supermarket" and also we offer them high-and low-calorie snacks. We use the nutritional content of the chosen food-shopping basket and the quantity of snacks consumed to determine the impact of acute stress on planned and immediate food consumption choices, respectively. Contrary to previous findings in the literature, we find no evidence of an effect of acute stress on immediate or planned food choices

Stress and Food Preferences: A Lab Experiment with Low-SES Mothers

We investigate whether short-term everyday stressors leads to unhealthier dietary choices among low socioeconomic status mothers. We propose a novel stress protocol that aims to mimic everyday stressors experienced by this population, involving time and financial pressure. We evaluate the impact of stress on immediate and planned food choices, comparing a group exposed to our stress protocol relative to a control group. Immediate consumption is measured with in-laboratory consumption of low calorie and high calorie snacks; planned consumption is measured with an incentivized food shopping task. The stressfulness of the stress protocol is evaluated using subjective assessments, as well as physiological measurements (heart rate and salivary cortisol levels). We find no evidence of an effect of stress on the nutritional content of immediate or planned food consumption, thus no support for the hypothesis that everyday stressors are a likely explanation for unhealthy food choices

Maternal Stress during Pregnancy and Children’s Diet:Evidence from a population of low socioeconomic status

Objectives: this study examined the relationship between maternal exposure to stress during pregnancy and children’s food preferences and diet in a population of low socioeconomic status. Methods: indices of exposure to stress were constructed based on retrospective self-reported experience of stressful events during pregnancy (e.g., death of close family member, relationship difficulties, legal issues, health issues, financial issues, or other potentially stressful event[s]). Data were collected for >200 mothers of a low socioeconomic status with a child age 2 to 12 y. Data on mothers’ body mass index, current exposure to stress, current diet, and diet during pregnancy were collected at the same time, as well as data on children’s food preferences and current diet as reported by the mothers. Indices of the healthiness of food preferences and diet were constructed and used as outcome variables. Results: maternal exposure to stress during pregnancy significantly predicts children’s food and taste preferences, as well as their diet, in regression models controlling for maternal diet, current maternal stress, and demographic characteristics of both the child and mother. Higher average stress during pregnancy is linked with significantly less healthy food preferences and diet, as well as with weaker preferences for sour and bitter foods. This relationship is observed across different age groups. Conclusions: maternal exposure to stress during pregnancy could have long-term detrimental effects on dietary outcomes and thereby on health conditions related to diet. Prenatal care and preconception counseling could be critical to develop preventive strategies to improve public health

Rewarding behavior with a sweet food strengthens its valuation

Sweet foods are commonly used as rewards for desirable behavior, specifically among children. This study examines whether such practice may contribute to reinforce the valuation of these foods. Two experiments were conducted, one with children, the other with rats. The first study, conducted with first graders (n = 214), shows that children who receive a food reward for performing a cognitive task subsequently value the food more compared to a control group who received the same food without performing any task. The second study, conducted on rats (n = 64), shows that rewarding with food also translates into higher calorie intake over a 24-hour period. These results suggest that the common practice of rewarding children with calorie-dense sweet foods is a plausible contributing factor to obesity and might therefore be ill advised. © 2021 This is an open access article, free of all copyright, and may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, modified, built upon, or otherwise used by anyone for any lawful purpose. The work is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication

Field and Temperature Shaping for Microwave Hyperthermia: Recent Treatment Planning Tools to Enhance SAR-Based Procedures

The aim of the article is to provide a summary of the work carried out in the framework of a research project funded by the Italian Ministry of Research. The main goal of the activity was to introduce multiple tools for reliable, affordable, and high-performance microwave hyperthermia for cancer therapy. The proposed methodologies and approaches target microwave diagnostics, accurate in vivo electromagnetic parameters estimation, and improvement in treatment planning using a single device. This article provides an overview of the proposed and tested techniques and shows their complementarity and interconnection. To highlight the approach, we also present a novel combination of specific absorption rate optimization via convex programming with a temperature-based refinement method implemented to mitigate the effect of thermal boundary conditions on the final temperature map. To this purpose, numerical tests were carried out for both simple and anatomically detailed 3D scenarios for the head and neck region. These preliminary results show the potential of the combined technique and improvements in the temperature coverage of the tumor target with respect to the case wherein no refinement is adopted

Unintentional injuries and potential determinants of falls in young children: Results from the Piccolipiù Italian birth cohort

Objectives: Unintentional injuries such as falls, are particularly frequent in early childhood. To date, epidemiological studies in this field have been carried out using routine data sources or registries and many studies were observational studies with a cross-sectional design. The aims of the study are to describe unintentional injuries in the first two years of life in the Piccolipiù birth cohort, and to investigate the association between mother and children characteristics and the First Event of Raised surface Fall (FERF). Methods: This longitudinal observational study included 3038 children from an Italian birth cohort. Data on socio-demographic factors, socio-economic indicators, maternal health and lifestyle characteristics and child’s sleeping behavior, obtained from questionnaires completed at birth, 12 and 24 months of age, were considered in the analyses as potential risk factors of FERF. Time of occurrence of FERF was analyzed using the Kaplan-Meier method. The multivariable analysis for time to event was carried out using a Cox proportional hazards model. Results: Falls from raised surfaces are the leading cause of unintentional injuries in the cohort with 610 (21.1%) and 577 (20.0%) cases among children during the first and second year of life, respectively. An increased risk of FERF was associated with several risk factors: maternal psychological distress (HR 1.41, 95%CI 1.10-1.81), maternal alcohol intake (HR 1.26, 95%CI 1.10-1.45), and child’s sleeping problems (HR 1.28, 95%CI 1.09-1.51). Children with older aged mothers (HR 0.98, 95%CI 0.96–0.99) and living in northern Italy (HR 0.64, 95%CI 0.55-0.75) had a lower risk of FERF. Conclusion: The results of the study suggest that a higher risk of FERF is associated with socio-demographic factors, maternal characteristics and child sleeping behavior that could hinder parent empowerment

Standardized algorithm for cardiac pacing in older patients affected by severe unpredictable reflex syncope: 3-year insights from the Syncope Unit Project 2 (SUP 2) study

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The food and beverage cues in digital marketing model: special considerations of social media, gaming, and livestreaming environments for food marketing and eating behavior research.

Digital marketing to children, teens, and adults contributes to substantial exposure to cues and persuasive messages that drive the overconsumption of energy dense foods and sugary beverages. Previous food marketing research has focused on traditional media, but less is known about how marketing techniques translate within digital platforms, such as social media, livestreaming, and gaming. Building upon previous theories and models, we propose a new model entitled food and beverage cues in digital marketing (FBCDM). The FBCDM model specifies key marking elements and marketing integration strategies that are common on digital platforms and are hypothesized to enhance the effects of advertising and incentive sensitization process. FBCDM also categorizes measurable outcomes into three domains that include brand, food, and social outcomes. Additionally, repeated marketing exposure and the resulting outcomes are hypothesized to have long term consequences related to consumer markets, consumption behavior, culture, and health. We include a discussion of what is currently known about digital marketing exposure within the outcome domains, and we highlight gaps in research including the long-term consequences of digital marketing exposure. The FBCDM model provides a conceptual framework to guide future research to examine the digital marketing of food and beverages to children and adolescents in order to inform government and industry policies that restrict the aggressive marketing of products associated with obesity and adverse diet related outcomes