Jonathon Schuldt

Jonathon Schuldt

Jonathon P. Schuldt is a researcher who, with Norbert Schwarz, wrote "The 'organic' path to obesity? Organic claims influence calorie judgments and exercise recommendations", published in Judgment and Decision Making in 2010. Both authors are listed in the Department of Psychology at the University of Michigan.

Who they are

Schuldt's affiliation is given here as it appears on the 2010 paper, which is the work this site draws on.

This page records only what the paper and its published record state. Biography beyond the cited work is not given here.

Key papers

The "organic" path to obesity? (2010), with Schwarz. The paper starts from a simple point: calling a food organic says something about how it was produced and nothing about its calories. In the first study, 114 students saw Oreo cookies described either as conventional or as made with organic flour and sugar. Both nutrition labels showed 160 calories per serving. Students judged the organic cookies lower in calories and said it was acceptable to eat them more often. The effect on calorie judgements was stronger among people who scored higher on a measure of pro-environmental attitudes.

In the second study, 214 students read about a dieter considering whether to skip her usual run after choosing a dessert. When the dessert was organic, skipping the run was judged more acceptable than when it was conventional.

Key ideas

The paper is a clear example of what is often called a health halo: a claim about one quality of a food, here how it was grown, spreads to judgements about unrelated qualities, here calories. Because both versions carried the same calorie information, the difference cannot come from the product itself.

The studies used student samples and hypothetical judgements rather than real eating, so they show how people judge food more than how much they eat.

Sources

  1. Schuldt, J. P., & Schwarz, N. (2010). The "organic" path to obesity? Organic claims influence calorie judgments and exercise recommendations. Judgment and Decision Making, 5(3), 144-150.