Dissociation from beloved unhealthy brands decreases preference for and consumption of vegetables

Many people form strong bonds with brands, including those for unhealthy foods. Thus, prompting people to dissociate from beloved but unhealthy food brands is an intuitively appealing means to shift consumption away from unhealthy options and toward healthy options. Contrary to this position, we demonstrate that dissociating from unhealthy but beloved brands diminishes people's interest in consuming vegetables because the dissociation depletes self-regulatory resources. Across three experimental studies, we manipulate dissociation from two beloved brands both implicitly (studies 1-2) and explicitly (study 3) and observe effects on both preference for vegetables (studies 2-3) and actual vegetable consumption (study 1). In study 1, participants consumed fewer vegetables following dissociation from (vs. association with) a beloved candy brand. Study 2 demonstrates that the effect of depletion on preference for vegetables is more pronounced for those who strongly identify with the brand, as these individuals are most depleted by the dissociation attempt. Finally, study 3 illustrates that the difficulty experienced when trying to dissociate from beloved brands drives the observed effects on vegetable preference and consumption for those who strongly (vs. weakly) identify with the brand.