TY - THES ID - 136601950 TI - Tax me if you can: a classical conditioning approach to food purchase behavior and taxation effectiveness AU - Verhoest, Elise AU - Goddyn, Hannelore AU - ter Braak, Anne AU - KU Leuven. Faculteit Economie en Bedrijfswetenschappen. Opleiding Master in het management (Leuven) PY - 2016 PB - Leuven KU Leuven. Faculteit Economie en Bedrijfswetenschappen DB - UniCat UR - https://www.unicat.be/uniCat?func=search&query=sysid:136601950 AB - On 1 January 2016, a sugar tax was implemented in Belgium, as one aspect of the much debated tax shift. The introduction of this tax is the motivation of our study. Research suggests that health taxes do not always produce the anticipated results, as consumers still buy the targeted products even though they became more expensive. This thesis investigates the role of conditioning processes and food cues in this process of food purchasing. The aim of this thesis is twofold. Firstly, we study whether food cues have an effect on participants’ willingness-to-pay (WTP). We carried out an experiment during which participants underwent a Pavlovian training. Analyses of the WTP questionnaire, that participants were requested to fill out after this training, show that they were not willing to pay more for unhealthy nor neutral food products presented with the CS+ (compared to products presented with the CS- or no cue). Secondly, we measure the effect of conditioning on effort. After a second Pavlovian training phase, participants received a voucher with which they could collect a food reward. The voucher contained the CS+, the CS- or no cue, and instructed participants to pick up their reward either one (small effort) or three (big effort) floors up. Participants with a CS+ voucher did not make a big effort more often, compared to participants with a CS- or no cue voucher. ER -