Testing the Influence of Different Sugary Drink Warning Label Designs

Participants will select a beverage to purchase in the virtual store. Our outcome will be the percentage of parents choosing a 20-ounce sugary drink for their child

Item: "How likely are you to serve or buy this product for your child in the next 4 weeks?" This will be answered on a 7-point Likert scale.

Item: "Serving this product to my child would make me feel like I am doing something good for my child." This will be measured on a 7-point likert scale.

Item: "How much do you think your child would enjoy this product?" This will be answered on a 7-point likert scale.

We will create this outcome by summing responses to the following 7 health perception questions 6 prompted with the statement "Drinking this product often would…". The statements end with the following health belief and risk perception language: "lead my child to gain weight," "increase my child's risk of heart disease," "increase my child's risk of diabetes," "make my child feel energized," "help my child focus at school", and "help my child live a healthy life." The other item is: "How healthy do you think this product is for your child?" Responses to questions about weight gain, heart disease, and diabetes will be reverse coded, so higher scores on the index will indicate a stronger positive health perception of the beverages. These will be scored on 7-point likert scales.

This variable will be measured continuously based on a text box provided to participants.

This variable will be measured on a 3-point Likert scale ranging from "too little for my child" to "too much for my child".

Participants will respond "yes," "no," or "I don't know" to the item: "When you selected a beverage to buy for your child at the beginning of this survey, did you notice any labels on the beverages other than calorie information?"

Participants will respond: "yes", "no," or "I did not notice any labels" in response to the question of whether the label influenced their purchase.

We will compare the percentage of participants in favor of (combining somewhat favor and strongly favor), opposed to (combining somewhat oppose and strongly oppose), or neutral about the policy based on the following question: "Would you favor or oppose a government policy requiring a warning label to be placed on beverages with added sugars?" Ratings will be from -2 to 2.

Item: "If this government warning label were on a beverage, how much would it change your thoughts about the healthiness of that beverage for your child?" This will be measured on a 5-point Likert scale.

Item: "If you saw this government warning label on a beverage, would the label encourage you to serve your child that beverage less often?" The responses will be measured on a 5-point Likert scale.

Item: "How much do you trust the information on this label?". Responses will be measured on a 7-point Likert scale.

We will examine the average negative emotional response to the label (said the warning label made them feel worried, fearful, guilty, or disgusted or grossed out). Each emotion will be scored on a 5-pt likert scale.