From Tangibility to Proximity How Virtual Reality Encourages Climate-Friendly Food Choices Among Adolescents

Mitigating climate change requires systemic policy reforms complemented by shifts in individual behaviors, particularly in adopting climate-friendly food choices. Adolescents, an influential yet understudied demographic for dietary change interventions, represent a critical target group. This study explores the potential of virtual reality (VR) to initiate and maintain climate-friendly food choices among adolescents, leveraging exemplification and construal level theory to test whether tangibility increases psychological proximity, and whether this pathway relates to behavior. A mixed-design field experiment (N = 150) across nine high schools tested VR (vs. control) as a between-subjects factor and time (T1, T2, T3) as a within-subjects factor. Results show that VR interventions promote and sustain climate-friendly food choices, with tangibility and proximity operating as serial mechanisms of change. These findings offer insights for researchers, policymakers, and NGOs, highlighting VR’s potential as a tool for fostering sustainable consumption patterns and advancing global climate change mitigation efforts.