Balancing Evolutionary Impulses: Effects of Mindfulness on Virtue Food Preference

Abstract

Mindfulness is emerging as a contemplative tool that may positively influence consumers' preference for virtue food, thus supporting health and well-being. However, it remains unclear which consumer groups may benefit the most from mindfulness. Previous research has demonstrated that consumers who experienced unpredictable environments in low socioeconomic households as children exhibit the likelihood of an adaptive chronic preference for vice food. Against this backdrop, the current research explores how mindfulness can support consumers who experienced low socioeconomic environments as children and further sheds light on the psychological mechanism, reduced impulsivity, for increased virtue food choice. This effect is tested across different manipulations of mindfulness and virtue food contexts. The research also introduces the unique mindfulness intervention of object visualization for helping stabilize the present-moment for consumers. Overall, the findings show that mindfulness may be a potential solution to impulsivity and increase preference for virtue food, supporting consumers in health and well-being.