Turn it down to eat more healthily: the effect of background music arousal on healthy food consumption

Public attention to health and well-being has intensified in recent years. However, healthy foods often trigger psychological reactance, partly due to the “healthy = untasty” intuition, particularly when health appeals are perceived as overtly persuasive. According to cross-domain mapping, we propose that individuals exposed to low-arousal (vs. high-arousal) background music are more likely to choose healthy foods.

This auditory cue–food congruency may enhance perceived comprehension, making healthy foods feel more contextually appropriate within the dining environment. Four studies were conducted: one field experiment (Study 1) and three scenario-based experiments (Studies 2a, 2b, and 3). Low-arousal (vs. high-arousal) background music was shown to facilitate healthy food choice (Study 1) and the intention to consume healthy foods (Studies 2a, 2b, and 3).

Perceived comprehension serves as the mediator in this relationship (Studies 2a, 2b, and 3). These findings suggest that low-arousal background music functions as a meaningful atmospheric cue supporting healthier consumption, offering a practical alternative to overt health messaging in food-service settings. This research was supported by the Macau Science and Technology Development Fund (FDCT: Grant 0026/2024/R1B2) and the Faculty Research Grant of Macau University of Science and Technology (FRG ID: FRG-25-085-MSB).

No funders had a role in the design, data collection, analysis, or interpretation of this research, nor in the decision to publish the results. These authors contributed equally: Shucheng Cao, Bihe Wen. School of Business, Macau University of Science and Technology, Macau, China Faculty of Humanities and Arts, Macau University of Science and Technology, Macau, China Crossmodal Research Laboratory, Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK The Institute for Sustainable Development, Macau University of Science and Technology, Macau, China Jiehan Zheng, Aaron Finley & Chengkun Liu The authors declare no competing interests.

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