Construal Level, Future Self-continuity Impact On Health Decisions

In recent years,more and more diseases and sub-health problems caused by diet,people are paying more attention to health and food.For people concerned about their own obesity,they pay more attention to diet.This makes the choice of diet a hot topic.This study explores the differences between subjective and objective choices of food in the choice of diet from the perspective of construal level and future self-continuity.From the view of construal level,the higher the level of construal is,the more rational the individual becomes.And future self-continuity hold that considering the future self,individuals are more able to control themselves and make decisions more rational in the moment.It can be speculated that construal level and future self-continuity may have the same mechanism of action in the choice of food.However,intertemporal decision-making studies have found that when people faced food,“rational people”may disappear and they will give up healthy food that meet long-term interests.And facing the disappearance of“reasonable people”,Wanwick(2014)also proposed a more acceptable decision-making approach for helping people:nudge,which is“liberal moderate despotism”.Therefore,this study combines trait and state construal level with future self-continuity to explore its impact on health decisions.The health decision indicators selected for the study were mainly perceived healthiness,the total calories and the total amount of fat calculated from the selected foods.Both studies selected sophomore from a high school as subjects.They studied the influence of trait construal level,state construal level and future self-continuity on health decision-making separately.Study 1,the effect of trait construal level on the health decision-making was studied.Through the BIF questionnaire,participants were divided into three groups:high construal level,medium construal level,and low construal level.Compare the differences in perceived healthiness,total calories,and the total amount of fat among the three groups of subjects who selected the food at the party.Study 2,based on the similarity of future self-continuity and state construal level manipulated by temporal distance,the researcher used 2(future self-continuity:strong vs weak)X2(construal level:high vs low)between-subjects design.Four scenarios were designed to investigate the impact of state construal level and future self-continuity on the choice of food for high school students at a class New Year's party.The results are as following:(1)Gender has a significant effect on the total calories and the total amount of fat of the selected food.The total calories and the total amount of fat of males is higher than those of females'.(2)The effect of the construal level on the total amount of fat of the selected food is significant at the margin,F=2.86,p=.063,?~2=.067,reaching a moderate effect(?~2=.058).The total amount of fat in the selected food at the medium construal level is higher than the high construal level.(3)The perceived healthiness of the selected foods under the manipulation of the strong future self-continuity is higher than that of the weak future self-continuity.And onperceived healthiness,the state construal level has synergy with future self-continuity.In the case of strong future self-continuity,the perceived healthiness of selected foods manipulated by the high construal level manipulation is higher than that of the low construal level.(4)Both the total calories and the total amount of fat in the selected food under the manipulation of the strong future self-continuity is lower than the weak future self-continuity.