Can self-control make you happy?

The relationship between self-control and happiness is often considered antithetical because self-control would require effortful discipline precluding the experience of pleasure. However, recent research reveals a robust (but moderate) association with all parameters that are seen as relevant in happiness research: satisfaction with life, positive affect, and the experience of meaning in life. Factors moderating this relationship suggest a significant role for strategies that are employed during the early stages of a self-control conflict and, to a lesser extent, making (some) progress towards one's goals.

Hope for the best or prepare for the worst? Calm perseverance, not vigilant monitoring, contributes to adolescent life satisfaction.

Objective: Which kind of self-regulatory strategies contribute to life satisfaction in adolescence?

Materials And Methods: In the present research, we tested two competing hypotheses arguing that either a strategy of vigilant monitoring of opportunities for working towards goal achievement or a calm perseverance strategy steadily working towards goals in a slower pace would promote life satisfaction in a large and diverse sample of adolescents. We also tested whether the employment of these strategies would hinge on perceptions of goal importance and goal attainability.

Results: Employing a longitudinal design, we found support that calm perseverance was the sole significant predictor of life satisfaction regardless of goal perceptions.

Nudging towards sustainable dining: Exploring menu nudges to promote vegetarian meal choices in restaurants.

Food choice behavior plays a large role in achieving sustainability goals. Meat in particular has a negative environmental impact as compared with plant-based food - and is more frequently chosen in restaurant contexts. To increase plant-based meal choices in restaurants, we tested three nudges for menus that are likely to be implemented by restaurant owners: a hedonic label (e.

Real-world nudging, pricing, and mobile physical activity coaching was insufficient to improve lifestyle behaviours and cardiometabolic health: the Supreme Nudge parallel cluster-randomised controlled supermarket trial.

Background: Context-specific interventions may contribute to sustained behaviour change and improved health outcomes. We evaluated the real-world effects of supermarket nudging and pricing strategies and mobile physical activity coaching on diet quality, food-purchasing behaviour, walking behaviour, and cardiometabolic risk markers.

Methods: This parallel cluster-randomised controlled trial included supermarkets in socially disadvantaged neighbourhoods across the Netherlands with regular shoppers aged 30-80 years.

The role of attention and health goals in nudging healthy food choice.

Introduction: Nudging is a promising intervention technique that supports people in pursuing their healthy eating goals. Recent research suggests that, despite previous assumptions, disclosure of the presence of a nudge does not compromise nudge effectiveness. However, it is unknown whether attention to a nudge affects nudge effects.

How does nudging the COVID-19 vaccine play out in people who are in doubt about vaccination?

In spite of the growing availability of COVID-19 vaccines, a substantial number of people is reluctant or uncertain about getting the vaccine. Nudges may improve vaccine uptake but it is unclear how this plays out with the experience of autonomous choice, decision competence, decision satisfaction, and being pressured to make a choice. In an online experiment among a representative sample (N = 884), we examined whether a social norm nudge or a default nudge (either or not transparent) was effective in steering the desired choice of making a hypothetical early vaccination appointment as compared to making a later appointment or no appointment.

Mental models of the protein shift: Exploring consumers' perceptions of the transition.

The protein transition is one of today's major societal challenges to mitigate climate change. To support lasting consumer engagement, it has been suggested to look into consumers' understanding of the protein transition to identify barriers that go beyond the practical issues of changing one's diet. The current study explored consumers' mental models of how the transition unfolds to examine which factors consumers perceive as important drivers of the transition.

Understanding public support for COVID-19 pandemic mitigation measures over time: Does it wear out?

Background: COVID-19 mitigation measures intend to protect public health, but their adverse psychological, social, and economic effects weaken public support. Less favorable trade-offs may especially weaken support for more restrictive measures. Support for mitigation measures may also differ between population subgroups who experience different benefits and costs, and decrease over time, a phenomenon termed "pandemic fatigue.

Prompting vegetable purchases in the supermarket by an affordance nudge: Examining effectiveness and appreciation in a set of field experiments.

The supermarket is a promising location for stimulating healthier food choices by nudging interventions. However, nudging healthy food choices in the supermarket has shown weak effects to date. The present research introduces a new nudge based on the concept of affordances - i.

Personal values, motives, and healthy and sustainable food choices: Examining differences between home meals and restaurant meals.

People are increasingly eating out in restaurants, where meals tend to be higher in calories, less nutritious, and contain more meat. In this paper, we argue that differences in the motivational processes underlying people's food choices could help to explain why food choices made in restaurants are typically unhealthier and less sustainable than at home. Using online survey data from 301 Dutch participants, we compared the influence of stable personal values and transient food choice motives on the healthiness and sustainability of meals chosen in a hypothetical choice task, which was geared to the home and restaurant consumption contexts.

Snacking for a reason: detangling effects of socio-economic position and stress on snacking behaviour.

Background: As snacking can be considered a cornerstone of an unhealthy diet, investigating psychological drivers of snacking behaviour is urgent, and therefore the purpose of this study. Socio-economic position (SEP) and stress are known to affect many behaviours and outcomes, and were therefore focal points in the study.

Methods: In a cross-sectional survey study, we examined whether Socio-economic position (SEP) would amplify associations between heightened stress levels and self-reported negative-affect related reasons for snacking.

How do people understand the spread of COVID-19 infections? Mapping mental models of factors contributing to the pandemic.

Objective: To describe the mental models people hold about the COVID-19 pandemic, with a focus on how they understand the factors that drive the spread of COVID-19 and what kind of beliefs are associated with these models.

Design: In a series of three studies (total N = 461), we asked participants to identify factors that are relevant for COVID-19 proliferation (Study 1a), rate the importance of factors (Study 1 b), and create a mental model of how these factors relate to virus spread by employing a validated tool for mental model elicitation (Study 2). Main outcome measures: inclusion and centrality of factors in mental models of COVID-19 infection spread.

Can we have a second helping? A preregistered direct replication study on the neurobiological mechanisms underlying self-control.

Self-control is of vital importance for human wellbeing. Hare et al. (2009) were among the first to provide empirical evidence on the neural correlates of self-control.

Misperceived eating norms: Assessing pluralistic ignorance in the food environment.

The current food environment communicates the social norm that it is normal to consume large amounts of unhealthy and unsustainable foods. However, it is unknown whether people endorse this norm because they agree with it, or whether they endorse it because they overestimate the degree to which other people agree with this norm - a phenomenon that is labeled as 'pluralistic ignorance'. We examined the possible presence of pluralistic ignorance by corroborating previous pluralistic ignorance literature in the food environment among a large representative sample of community residents (N = 433).

Healthcare workers' acceptability of influenza vaccination nudges: Evaluation of a real-world intervention.

Nudges have been proposed as an effective tool to stimulate influenza vaccination uptake in healthcare workers. However, the success of such nudges in practice is heavily reliant on their acceptance by the intended healthcare worker population, which has not been thoroughly examined to date. This study investigated healthcare workers' acceptability of diverse influenza vaccination nudges implemented in a real-world vaccination campaign and explored the relationship between nudge acceptability and vaccination uptake.

Does default organ donation registration compromise autonomous choice? Public responses to a new donor registration system.

Defaults have been shown to increase the number of organ donor registrations but it is unclear whether they violate personal autonomy of the people being registered. The implementation of a new Donor Act in the Netherlands, providing people with the opportunity for active registration before being defaulted, allowed for examining to what extent default registration affects personal autonomy and associated concepts. In an online survey among a representative sample (N = 1259), four groups were compared regarding autonomy, decision-making competence, decision satisfaction, and being pressured to register as a donor: people (1) who had registered their status prior to the Donor Act, (2) who had not yet received an invitation for default registration, (3) who had received an invitation and then registered their choice, and (4) who had received an invitation but took no action and were defaulted into donor registration.

"Keep your distance for me": A field experiment on empathy prompts to promote distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The outbreak of COVID-19 has turned out to be a major challenge to societies all over the globe. Curbing the pandemic requires rapid and extensive behavioural change to limit social interaction, including physical distancing. In this study, we tested the notion that inducing empathy for people vulnerable to the virus may result in actual distancing behaviour beyond the mere motivation to do so.

How food overconsumption has hijacked our notions about eating as a pleasurable activity.

The negative effects of overconsumption of food have been extensively studied, with a focus on overweight and negative food attitudes. In this overview, we argue that this negative perspective has spilled over to food consumption in general, which is in contrast with eating as a pleasurable activity that contributes to people's well-being. We review four areas of research that have recently emerged: (de)moralization of food consumption, moderate eating for pleasure, intuitive and mindful eating, and the social benefits of eating.

Make it a habit: how habit strength, goal importance and self-control predict hand washing behaviour over time during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Objective: Hand washing has been at the core of recommendations and guidelines that aim to curb infectious diseases in general, and COVID-19 in particular. As hand washing comes down to an individual's behaviour, we aimed to study how individual psychological variables influence hand washing over time during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Design: Over the course of 20 weeks, participants answered questions about their hand washing behaviour, goal importance, habit strength and self-control.

Who accepts nudges? nudge acceptability from a self-regulation perspective.

Background: Public acceptability of nudging is receiving increasingly more attention, but studies remain limited to evaluations of aspects of the nudge itself or (inferred intentions) of the nudger. Yet, it is important to investigate which individuals are likely to accept nudges, as those who are supposed to benefit from the implementation should not oppose it. The main objective of this study was to integrate research on self-regulation and nudging, and to examine acceptability of nudges as a function of self-regulation capacity and motivation.

The effect of nudges on autonomy in hypothetical and real life settings.

Nudges have repeatedly been found to be effective, however they are claimed to harm autonomy, and it has been found that laypeople expect this too. To test whether these expectations translate to actual harm to experienced autonomy, three online studies were conducted. The paradigm used in all studies was that participants were asked to voluntarily participate in a longer version of the questionnaire.

Nudgeability: Mapping Conditions of Susceptibility to Nudge Influence.

Nudges are behavioral interventions to subtly steer citizens' choices toward "desirable" options. An important topic of debate concerns the legitimacy of nudging as a policy instrument, and there is a focus on issues relating to nudge transparency, the role of preexisting preferences people may have, and the premise that nudges primarily affect people when they are in "irrational" modes of thinking. Empirical insights into how these factors affect the extent to which people are susceptible to nudge influence (i.

Discussing overweight in dogs during a regular consultation in general practice in the Netherlands.

In previous studies, it has been demonstrated that, similar to general practitioners, veterinarians find it difficult to discuss overweight in dogs. This study aimed to provide insight in the barriers and motivators for veterinarians to discuss overweight in dogs and to compare the results with findings from human medicine. Sub-hypotheses were postulated based on existing literature to investigate if lack of time, fear of offending clients, or lack of skills were potential barriers, and if feeling responsible and feeling compassion were potential motivators for veterinarians to discuss overweight in dogs.