A study by a behavioral economist at Cornell Universityfound that kids will make bad food choices in the lunch line when they pay withcards as opposed to cash, NPR reports
“Kids are much, much, muchmore likely to take desserts and are much less likely to take fruits andvegetables” when they use their debit cards, says Wansink. “Incontrast to that, in schools where kids are paying cash, kids not only buy alot more fruit but they also buy a lot less dessert.”
Not only did three times as manykids buy vegetables when they were paying with cash over debit cards, but theyalso ate 10 percent fewer calories
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The advent of new forms of payments, whether by mobilephone, wearables, or even just by having a customer’s picture show up at thepoint of sale, will change behaviors. This research is just one example of manythat show how people treat cash differently than other forms of payments.Payments providers, merchants, and others should be alert to these changes andwhat they might mean for the changing ways in which people shop and spend money.
Overview by Ben Jackson, Director of the Prepaid Advisory Service for Mercator Advisory Group
Full story at NPR