To Choose or to Reject: The Effect of Decision Frame on Food Customization Decisions

•Decision frames of choosing versus rejecting impact food customization choices.•Decision frames affect choice of healthy/unhealthy items during food customization.•Valence of customized food, healthy (e.g., salad)/unhealthy (e.g., pizza) moderates the effect.

Food retailers increasingly allow consumers to customize their food by either choosing items from available options or rejecting items from a pre-prepared set of options. In this study, we examine the effect of these two decision frames (choose vs. reject) on consumers’ food customization decisions. Specifically, we depart from the previous literature's focus on the quantity of items and examine the effect of decision frames on the nature of items included in the customized food. The results of a series of studies show that decision frames influence the relative number of healthy versus unhealthy items included in the customized food, and that this influence is further contingent upon the valence of the food to be customized (e.g., “healthy” salad or “unhealthy” pizza).

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