Consumers’ portion size choices are important, as they can influence how much food is eaten and wasted. While previous research has focused on self-selected portion sizes, this research examines portion size choices for others. The authors demonstrate that consumers choose larger portion sizes for others than for themselves, across both healthy and unhealthy foods, and for a wide range of different others. Choosing larger portion sizes for others is problematic, as the authors show that it can contribute to increased food waste. Both process-consistent moderation and mediation show that one driver of choosing larger portion sizes for others is consumers’ desire to view themselves as being caring. Alternative accounts (e.g., predicting that others want to eat more than the self, greater consumption amount uncertainty for others than the self) are addressed. Finally, a process-consistent intervention that reframes the meaning of being caring as mitigating the burden of unwanted leftovers for others decreases portion size choices for others. Altogether, this research offers theoretical contributions to the literatures on food decision-making and choices for others and offers practical contributions by identifying a novel contributor to food waste in social contexts and thus a potential target for interventions aimed at mitigating food waste.
Liu et al. (Thu,) studied this question.