Shoppers With Reusable Shopping Bags Will Likely Grab for Junk Food

When you feel that you have purchased too much junk food, take a look at the bag you are bringing to the supermarket, and it might be the culprit.

For some, a reusable bag may be a small contribution in saving the planet while for some, it may mean saving ten cents at supermarkets. However, as suggested in a purchasing behavioral study conducted by Harvard's Uma Karmarkar and Duke University's Bryan Bollinger, taking reusable shopping bags to the supermarket increases the urge of people to put junk food in their bags.

The American Marketing Association, as reported by Eureka Alert, used a major grocery chain in California as case study for the two-part research.

On the first part, they were able to collect data of loyalty card holders from May 2005 and March 2007. The data was used to compare the same shoppers when they had a reusable bag and when they did not.

The second part of the study involved picking participants from an online national pool and making them answer the top ten items they would most likely purchase if they brought with them a reusable bag and if they did not bring a reusable bag. They were also given a floor plan of the grocery store.

Results suggest that the purchase of indulgents may be explained by a theory called the Licensing Effect.

"When one does something good in one domain, one potentially and unconsciously indulge in another domain," Karmarkar said via CBS. She also said that a reward is directly linked to an action, like eating desserts.

In this case, it is more abstract. When one uses reusable shopping bags, this would mean a decrease in usage of plastic bags. Bringing reusable bags to the supermarket may connote that someone is environmentally conscious. People even tend to add organic food to their bags to project an identity of being conscious of the environment.

As the Licensing Effect would suggest, people who bring reusable bags need to treat themselves with junk food they can find in the grocery, such as potato chips, products with lots of fat, salt and sugar, etc.

Reusable shopping bags may also add to one's weekly grocery cost. For one, because those with reusable shopping bags tend to buy organic food, which adds a considerable expense to a family's annual grocery budget, the Telegraph noted.

In short, bringing your own bags changes the way you shop. It even has implications on store managers and how they market and arrange their stocks. Generally, Time suggests, one should stick to a grocery list to avoid such effects.