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Rramani Q, Gerhardt H, Grote X, Zhao W, Schultz J, Weber B. Do Disadvantageous Social Contexts Influence Food Choice? Evidence From Three Laboratory Experiments. Front Psychol 2020; 11:575170. [PMID: 33240164 PMCID: PMC7677191 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.575170] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/22/2020] [Accepted: 09/02/2020] [Indexed: 12/02/2022] Open
Abstract
Increasing rates of obesity have fueled interest in the factors underlying food choice. While epidemiological studies report that disadvantaged social groups exhibit a higher incidence of obesity, causal evidence for an effect of social contexts on food choice remains scarce. To further our knowledge, we experimentally investigated the effect of disadvantageous social context on food choice in healthy, non-dieting participants. We used three established experimental methods to generate social contexts of different valence in controlled laboratory settings: (i) receiving varying amounts of money in a Dictator Game (DG; n = 40), (ii) being included or excluded in a Cyberball Game (CBG; n = 35), and (iii) performing well, average, or poorly in a response time ranking task (RTR; n = 81). Following exposure to a particular social context, participants made pairwise choices between food items that involved a conflict between perceived taste and health attributes. In line with previous research, stronger dispositional self-control (assessed via a questionnaire) was associated with healthier food choices. As expected, being treated unfairly in the DG, being excluded in the CBG, and performing poorly in the RTR led to negative emotions. However, we did not find an effect of the induced social context on food choice in any of the experiments, even when taking into account individual differences in participants’ responses to the social context. Our results suggest that—at least in controlled laboratory environments—the influence of disadvantageous social contexts on food choice is limited.
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Affiliation(s)
- Qëndresa Rramani
- Center for Economics and Neuroscience, University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany.,Institute of Experimental Epileptology and Cognition Research, University of Bonn Medical Center, Bonn, Germany
| | - Holger Gerhardt
- Center for Economics and Neuroscience, University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany.,Department of Economics, Institute for Applied Microeconomics, University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany
| | - Xenia Grote
- Center for Economics and Neuroscience, University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany.,Institute of Experimental Epileptology and Cognition Research, University of Bonn Medical Center, Bonn, Germany
| | - Weihua Zhao
- Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Neuroinformation, Clinical Hospital of Chengdu Brain Science Institute, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China
| | - Johannes Schultz
- Center for Economics and Neuroscience, University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany.,Institute of Experimental Epileptology and Cognition Research, University of Bonn Medical Center, Bonn, Germany
| | - Bernd Weber
- Center for Economics and Neuroscience, University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany.,Institute of Experimental Epileptology and Cognition Research, University of Bonn Medical Center, Bonn, Germany
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Vainik U, Misic B, Zeighami Y, Michaud A, Mõttus R, Dagher A. Obesity has limited behavioural overlap with addiction and psychiatric phenotypes. Nat Hum Behav 2019; 4:27-35. [DOI: 10.1038/s41562-019-0752-x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/29/2018] [Accepted: 09/04/2019] [Indexed: 11/10/2022]
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Abstract
How narcissism, a personality associated with a 'need for power', influences scientific behaviour is analysed. The caption shows the sadness of a scientist (in a submissive posture) whose work has been scooped. The community maintains this scientist at a low status, by preventing him from being galvanised by the social attention of others.
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Affiliation(s)
- Bruno Lemaitre
- Global Health Institute, School of Life Science, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland
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