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Social norms and their influence on eating behaviours
While there are many studies that suggest that social eating norms strongly influence both food choice and consumption, this 2015 review outlines the possible reasons why people follow social eating norms and investigates the moderating factors involved in norm-following. Higgs firstly suggests that eating norms are followed because it promotes the sharing of food, and spreads information about safe foods. Norms are effective in affecting human behavior since following these norms is connected with social judgment. It was stated that people are more likely to follow norms when there is a sense of uncertainty around what is the correct or incorrect behavior. Norm-following then allows individuals to feel a sense of shared identity with the person/group they mimicked. It is the modification of self-perceptions and sensory or hedonic (pleasure-related) assessments of food caused by social norms that may affect food choice and level of intake. And it is likely that people’s following of eating norms is reinforced by the same neural systems responsible for mediating the rewarding aspects of food. [NPID: psychosocial, social norms, food sharing, behavior, social judgement, shared identity, sensory, hedonic pleasure, pleasure, hedonic, food choice, decision making, reward]
Year: 2015
