Abstract: Self-controlled dietary decisions, i.e., choosing a healthier food over a tastier one, are a major
challenge for many people. Despite the potential profound consequences of frequent poor choices,
maintaining a healthy diet proves challenging. This raises the question of how to facilitate selfcontrolled
food decisions to promote healthier choices. The present study compared the influence of
implicit and explicit information on food choices and their underlying decision processes. Participants
watched two video clips as an implicit manipulation to induce different mindsets. Instructions to
focus on either the short-term or long-term consequences of choices served as an explicit manipulation.
Participants performed a binary food choice task, including foods with different health and taste
values. The choice was made using a computer mouse, whose trajectories we used to calculate
the influence of the food properties. Instruction to focus on long-term consequences compared to
short-term consequences increased the number of healthy choices, reduced response times for healthy
decisions, and increased the influence of health aspects during the decision-making process. The
effect of video manipulation showed greater variability. While focusing on long-term consequences
facilitated healthy food choices and reduced the underlying decision conflict, the current mindset
appeared to have a minor influence.
Keywords: food choice; decision making; self-control; mouse tracking; process tracing