Describe what psychologists have discovered about menu design psychology.

Mark scheme

Marking points from the official mark scheme (May/June 2021). The mark or mark type is shown in brackets.

1. [0] (a) Menu design psychology, including the following: • eye movement patterns, framing and common menu mistakes (Pavesic, 2005) • primacy, recency and menu item position (Dayan and Bar-Hillel, 2011) • sensory perception and food name (Wansink et al., 2005)
2. [0] (a) Eye movement patterns, framing and common menu mistakes (Pavesic, 2005) A review article that outlines how customers use menus and how restaurants can design better menus (use of ‘eye magnets’) such as a box around the appetiser or different coloured font to a menu description. Common menu mistakes such as hard to read and overemphasising pricing also discussed. Average time spent looking at a menu 109 seconds.
3. [0] (a) Primacy, recency and menu item position (Dayan and Bar-Hillel, 2011) Two studies – study 1 – 240 Hebrew students given four different pizza menu designs. Found selected items at extremes (top/bottom) rather than in the middle but no primacy-recency effect found. Study 2 was a field experiment over 30 days and confirmed the findings with items being selected more frequently if they were on the beginning or end of the category options. Suggested putting healthier items at the top and bottom of the menu and less healthy items in the middle.
4. [0] (a) Sensory perception and food name (Wansink et al., 2005) 6 week experiment in a cafeteria with 140 customers. Foods with descriptive and evocative names had more positive comments (such as ‘Succulent Italian Seafood Filet’) and rated as more appealing, tasty and caloric than those with more regular names (e.g. ‘Seafood Fillet’). Open ended comments revealed more favourable comments about the product when the descriptive label was used compared to the regular label. The researchers concluded, the use of descriptive names may help improve perceptions of foods in institutional settings, and it may help facilitate the introduction of unfamiliar foods.
5. [0] (a) Mark according to the levels of response descriptors in Table A.
6. [0] (a) Other appropriate responses should also be credited.
7. [0] (b) A range of issues could be used for evaluation here. These include: • Named issue – ecological validity – The study by Wansink does have good ecological validity as it was done in a realistic environment of a cafeteria in America. The menu design conditions were very realistic and these types of menus do exist in restaurants. In addition, these participants did not know they were in a study so would have made more natural choices. In contrast, the study by Dayan has lower ecological validity as it was a lab experiment and although the participants were making real choices from realistic menus, it was not, in fact, to really purchase and eat any of the food. The participants in this study may have taken the choices less seriously and also responded to the unrealistic lab environment which would lower the validity of the study. They did, however, then go onto to replicate the results in the real restaurant which shows higher ecological validity.
8. [0] (b) Strengths and weaknesses of the methods used in research
9. [0] (b) Generalisations including cultural bias
10. [0] (b) Usefulness/practical applications
11. [0] (b) Ethics of the two studies
12. [0] (b) Deterministic nature of the theories about menu design psychology
13. [0] (b) Reductionist nature of the theories about menu design psychology
14. [0] (b) Mark according to the levels of response descriptors in Table B.
15. [0] (b) Other appropriate responses should also be credited.