Talk Berger (Lecture Series)

13.12.2016 12:15 – 13:15

Could we eat insects? Using behavioral science to promote entomophagy

A key challenge for climate change mitigation on the consumer side is to break cultural habits that excessively lead to carbon emission. One of the culturally most robust habits is the reliance of the Western societies on conventional meat sources beef, pork, and poultry, although recent research has highlighted the climate costs from our ever-growing demand of such meats. Hence, the UN (FAO) has suggested the increasing use of insects as alternative sources of animal protein in human diets. This endeavor is challenging: First, insects as a food source is culturally uncommon in the Western world; insects typically raise aversive reactions such as disgust in many Westerners. Accordingly, behavioral scientific research has largely neglected research on entomophagy and particularly the effectiveness of various information campaigns or pricing decisions on the likelihood to change consumption habits in favor of insects. Our research is the one of the first to fill that gap. We show how various marketing actions and social information crucially affect the uptake of insects as foods in experimental subjects.

Lieu

Bâtiment: Campus Biotech

Conference Room 144.165

entrée libre

Fichiers joints

Talk Berger.pdf

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