Carolina Werle
Brazil
Assistant Professor, Marketing
Areas of expertise
Social Marketing, Consumer Behavior, Effective means of promotion for preventive health campaigns, Food consumption , Obesity prevention, Experimental Design
Contact
+33 4 76 70 65 44 - Office F705
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Carolina Werle is an Assistant Professor in the Marketing Department at Grenoble Ecole de Management (GEM). She received her Ph.D. in Marketing, with distinction, from Université Pierre Mendes France. The research of her dissertation was conducted at Cornell University (Ithaca, NY) while she was visiting the Cornell Food & Brand Lab. She was also a visiting scholar at University of California (Irvine, CA) conducting research on social identity issues in advertising. At GEM, she teaches Social Marketing, Marketing Psychology and Consumer Behavior, Experimental Design, Research in Marketing, and Research Methods for Master and PhD students.
Professor Werle's research on consumer behavior has been published in Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine and Appetite. Her research has been mentioned by several print and electronic media outlets, including L'Express, le Dauphiné Libéré, TopSanté, and Le Progrès.
Professor Werle's research interests include Social Marketing, Exercise and Food Consumption, Consumer Self-Control, Regret, and Prevention Campaigns Efficacy. One stream of research examines how consumers compensate between exercise and food consumption, and shows that being distracted while exercising conduct consumers to eat less hedonic foods. Her research about obesity prevention campaigns efficacy demonstrates the importance of highlighting social risks when designing such advertisements for adolescents in low income schools.
A native of Brazil, she received a B.A. in Business Administration from Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, at Porto Alegre, Brazil, and a Masters' Degree in Quantitative Marketing from Université Pierre Mendes France. In addition to her academic background, Carolina worked as a market researcher both in Brazil and France.
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Articles in Refeered Journals
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Based on the findings demonstrating compensation between mental effort and subsequent food consumption, this article focuses on the compensatory mechanism between thinking about physical activity and food intake. Results from a field experiment indicate that simply reading about physical activity leads participants to compensate by serving themselves more snacks. The amount of snacks served was mediated by biased calorie estimation. Additionally, we also manipulated the way physical activity was perceived (as tiring exercise or as a fun activity). Although results suggest extra consumption when exercise is perceived as tiring, differences were not statistically significant.
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Food-scented products are widely available, yet it is unclear whether they influence eating behavior.
Food-related cues can increase intake; therefore, it was anticipated that conscious exposure to foodscented
products (e.g., body lotion) could also influence consumption. Female participants (n = 58) were
randomly assigned to an exposure condition (labeled chocolate lotion, unlabeled chocolate lotion, or
unscented lotion), and their subsequent intake of chocolate-chip cookies was measured. A significant
effect of condition on intake emerged. Those who knew that they were evaluating a chocolate-scented
lotion ate more than did those exposed to the same (unlabeled) lotion, suggesting that conscious exposure
to chocolate-related products may increase food intake.
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How does a person's first experience with a foreign or unfamiliar food shape their long-term preference and behavior toward that food? To investigate this, 493 American veterans of World War II were surveyed about their preference for Japanese and Chinese food. Pacific veterans who experienced high levels of combat had a stronger dislike for these Asian foods than those Pacific veterans experiencing lower levels of combat. Consistent with expectations, combat experience for European veterans had no impact on their preference for Asian food. The situation in which one is initially exposed to an unfamiliar food may long continue to shape preferences.
ISSN 0195-6663
DOI: 10.1016/j.appet.2009.01.001.
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Chapters in Books
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Does the context in which people first experience a foreign or unfamiliar food shape long-term preferences for that food? While there is abundant research demonstrating the immediate effects of environmental cues on food consumption, research investigating the potential long-term effects of contextual experiences with a food on preference remains scarce. Research generally examines the effect of specific food characteristics and for instance personality characteristics on food preferences, largely ignoring the very first experiences people had with a food. To better understand and predict people’s preferences for different types of foods, it is important to understand the origin of their preferences. To investigate this, in the present chapter, we rely on unique data on food preferences among soldiers involved in World War II. More specifically, we examine whether the trauma of combat shaped veterans preferences for Japanese and Chinese food based on a survey among493 American veterans of World War II. Pacific veterans who experienced high levels of combat had a stronger dislike for these Asian foods than those Pacific veterans experiencing lower levels of combat. Consistent with expectations, combat experience for European veterans had no impact on their preference for Asian food. The situation in which one is initially exposed to an unfamiliar food may long continue to shape preferences, in the context of this research up to 60 years.
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Papers in Refereed Conference Proceedings(Only the 10 latest publications are displayed)
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When people begin exercise programs they often report gaining instead of losing weight (Time Magazine, 2009). Why? It is not because they are building muscles; it is probably because they are overeating. People may be overeating because they underestimate calories of what they eat or probably because they are compensating. This paper examines whether this is true and presents a potential solution: being distracted while exercising.
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In a context where obesity is increasing in France (Obépi, 2009) this article investigates the effects of food advertising on the process of eating regulation. Recent research demonstrates that certain individuals feel heavier and have the impression of gaining weight when they imagine consuming highly caloric foods. This is a cognitive distortion called thought-shape fusion (TSF; Shafran & al., 1999). Curiously some food advertising make people imagine the consumption of a food in a situation very similar to the TSF induction made in laboratory. Our objective is to verify if this phenomenon can be caused by some kinds of food advertisements and, if so, what are the consequences in terms of intentions to control weight and of food consumption.
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Previous research demonstrated that "unhealthy" and "tasty" foods are implicitly associated for American subjects (Raghunatan, Naylor, and Hoyer, 2006). There are significant differences in terms of food perceptions between French and Americans (Rozin and al., 1999; Fischler, 2008). One study demonstrates that the opposite intuition exists implicitly in France: "healthy" is implicitly associated with "tasty". Results indicate that level of dietary restraint and BMI can potentially explain these differences. The strenght of the association between "healthy" and "tasty" foods is weaker for highly restrained eaters. Furthermore, there is a negative correlation between BMI and reponse time in the IAT: the higher the BMI the weaker the association between "healthy" and "tasty".
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Although adolescents are especially susceptible to social risks, obesity
prevention in France adopts a promotion orientation based only in health risks. An experiment
conducted in middle and high schools demonstrates that health arguments are not effective in
changing eating behaviors, but their effect is enhanced by a prevention orientation; the social
argument, more influential, benefits from a promotion orientation.
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Two studies using real choice settings demonstrate context influence on the choice and consumption of mixed foods (combining hedonic and utilitarian attributes). A hedonic context leads to the choice and reduced consumption of mixed foods for guilt-reducitng reasons. A utilitarian context induces less guilt, and leads individuals to choose and consume more of the mixed foods. Priming guilt through nutritional information reverses these effects.
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In order to prevent obesity, French government imposes industries to insert health messages on advertisements. This requirement seems righteous, nevertheless it has unexpected adverse effects. An experiment collecting implicit and explicit measures shows that adding a sanitary message could fill in consumers’ need for justification leading to a greater acceptability of the advertised product.
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