The power of habit

Life is a constant stream of decisions that pit sober reflection against powerful emotions, conscious deliberation against gut instincts. Using complex models and sophisticated experiments, researchers study how we combine these different decision-making strategies. One mention of insects is enough to draw a sceptical smile from Michael Siegrist. As Professor of Consumer Behaviour at ETH Zurich, he is constantly reminded how conservative people are when it comes to food. "If we want to make food production more sustainable, insects are probably the hardest way to go about it," he says. "Insects turn almost everyone's stomach, which is difficult to overcome." Siegrist and his team study how consumers are guided by their emotions - and their findings suggest that emotional responses are often more powerful than rational ones. In various experiments, the researchers have confirmed that, when it comes to assimilating information, we are influenced considerably more by symbolic information than by pure facts.