Middle choice preference and snack choice: The role of self-regulatory resources to nudge healthier food choice

• Middle-choice preference is a potential nudging intervention.
• In high self-regulatory conditions, middle-choice preference may benefit food choice.
• Three snacks with distinct calories were presented under manipulated cognitive load.
• No cereal bar was chosen more frequently when placed in the middle position.
• Middle-choice preference is limited to the availability of self-regulatory resources.

When confronted with a three-choice paradigm, products placed in the middle position are selected more frequently compared to peripheral options. Under low self-regulatory resource conditions, exploiting the middle position preference may be a promising nudge towards healthier food choices. This study aims to investigate boundary conditions of the middle choice preference in a convenience sample (n = 182) using a 2 (high depletion vs. low depletion of self-regulatory resources) × 2 (low caloric snack position: left vs. middle) between-subjects design. Three different snack bars were positioned from left to right in ascending order of calorie content (apple, chocolate-banana and chocolate) with the apple variety as either positioned on the left side or in the middle position (nudge). Our results showed that across all participants, no middle position preference could be observed between different snacks (χ2(2) = 0.28, p = 0.35), neither for participants in low depletion (36.8%; 35/95), χ2(1) = 0.18, p = 0.53 or high depletion condition (35.6%; 31/87), χ2(1) = 0.83, p = 0.25. Liking and gender did not influence choice behavior. Our findings suggest that nudging healthy middle choice preferences is limited to the extent of self-regulatory resource availability. This boundary condition should be considered when designing public health interventions to nudge healthier food choices based on middle position preferences.