Storage Duration Affects Food Waste Behavior
Psych 🧠- 255/300
Hey reader,
How often does your Fridge has items that are falling out the moment you open it? Or does the items in your Fridge have enough space with ‘breathing’ area.
This study is about the duration of storage & correlation with food waster’ behaviour.
What is it?
Study researchers investigated how duration of storage affects food waste behavior.
The longer you keep food in your possession, the more likely you are to throw it away, even if the food is perfectly fine.
This happens because the longer you have it, the less fresh it seems, even if there's no real reason for it.
This effect is separate from expiration dates and manufacturing dates, and it applies whether you're looking at one food item or comparing two.
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What do I need to know?
This research is based on ownership, how our minds work, food science, and ways to reduce food waste.
It's backed by six studies and suggests ways to stop this from happening.
1. Duration of Ownership Matters: The duration of owning a food product affects our behavior more than its manufacturing or expiration dates, highlighting the role of psychology in food waste.
2. Perception of Freshness: Even when food is safe to eat, we may still waste it due to our perception that longer ownership reduces its freshness, indicating the importance of how we perceive food's quality.
3. Psychological Ownership: The longer we own food, the more we psychologically "own" it, influencing our decisions on when to dispose of it.
Sources:
https://myscp.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/jcpy.1389