Behavioural Nudging of Alcohol Consumption Behaviour in Online Shopping Environments

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Alcohol consumption has significantly changed in the United Kingdom in the post-pandemic environment. Where on-license consumption had stopped during lockdowns due to pub, club, and restaurant closures, off-license consumption increased. The methods of sourcing alcohol changed to utilize online sources as well as traditional brick and mortar shops. This brings a significant change to the alcohol landscape as online shopping behaviors constitute a different range of consumer product exploration and decision making processes. The target population of the study is those using online shopping to complete their grocery shopping, which according to current market data is middle-aged individuals in middle to high income households.Preliminary work will utilize the 6SQuiD framework to select behavioral change theories (BCTs) to be used in the experimental phase of the project. The behavioral change theories will be selected from a list of behavioral change theories that are being utilized in the larger field of alcohol cessation research, predominantly in the mobile application space. Ten will be selected for further exploration. The experimental phase of the project utilizes a simulated digital shopping platform environments to implement behavior change theories prior to "in the wild" application. This simulated shopping environment has been tested in other alcohol studies and works to establish the forms in which behavior change theories are incorporated. The "in the wild" exploration is motivated by current approaches in human computer interaction (HCI) research which focuses on how users react to technology around them as opposed to person-based approaches. These experiments rely heavily on qualitative outputs from users in a think-aloud format as well as quantitative outputs such as alcohol content of beverages purchased. This is to discover effective behavior change theories in reducing alcohol purchasing behavior in online shopping settings. These behavior change theories will be tested individually before being combined to see affect size impacts. The findings would yield the individual behavior change theories with the greatest affect sizes as well as potential combinations with large affect sizes. There is potential for affect sizes to not be additive, but this is an area which will be explored in part due to existing alcohol consumption cessation applications using combinations of behavioral change theories.As a result of the series of experiments and associated studies, an experimental protocol for testing behavior change theories and their combinations in an online setting will be developed. This will be built on top of existing frameworks such as 6SQuiD.Secondary impacts to the researched population will include promoting and educating the target population about the health implications of moderate to high alcohol consumption and the health benefits of consumption reduction. The target is to reduce the purchasing of high alcohol content beverages in off license settings and nudging towards lower consumption rates by way of incorporating no/low alcohol options. The final output would be not only the individual behavioral change theories and their combinations with the largest affect sizes, but also a framework for a personalized, preventative alcohol consumption intervention at the point of purchase for those utilizing online purchase points. This framework could be utilized in a number of ways inside and outside the digital health space. In the digital space it can impact the website architecture of online shopping platforms. In the health space, there could be changes in which alcohol related health warnings are supplied to consumers (including place, frequency, and method). In the policy space there could be changes to requirements around interactions in the online shopping space to verify ages and limiting amount of alcohol supplied to consumers, mirroring existing policies in place at physical shop locations.