When Our Eating Experience Falls Short, Do We Eat More to Compensate?

• People have expectations about how much they will enjoy their food and other enjoyable activities
• A new study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology: Attitudes and Social Cognition proposes that when they do not experience the expected joy due to distraction, people will want to eat more to compensate
• They may snack more or more often in the afternoon to compensate for insufficient enjoyment of lunch

People do many things for joy. We take walks because we enjoy them. We play sports or video games just for the joy of it. We often talk to friends just because we enjoy the exchanges. Eating food is also partly done for enjoyment. When we visit a restaurant or eat a meal, aside from nutrition, we also have an expectation that we will enjoy the experience.

This is called hedonic consumption – consumption of experiences “by an affective and sensory experience of aesthetic or sensual pleasure, fantasy, and fun” (Dhar & Wertenbroch, 2000). Hedonic consumption is a critical aspect of everyday life. It is crucial for our psychological well-being.

 

Hedonic consumption refers to the consumption of experiences “by an affective and sensory experience of aesthetic or sensual pleasure, fantasy, and fun.”

 

Hedonic overconsumption

However, hedonic consumption sometimes becomes too excessive and even problematic.  A person can eat too much of the food he/she likes, leading to health problems. He/She may spend too much time playing games while neglecting other obligations. A person may decide to stay late at night to do so, impairing his/her functioning the following day. If staying late happens often and disrupts sleep patterns, in time, such behavior can dysregulate various systems of the body, leading to different health problems (Brondel et al., 2010; Cappuccio et al., 2008; Hillman & Lack, 2013)

This excessive consumption of goods and services for pleasure and enjoyment rather than necessity is called hedonic overconsumption.

 

The excessive consumption of goods and services for pleasure and enjoyment rather than necessity is called hedonic overconsumption.

 

A theoretical model of hedonic overconsumption

Why do people engage in hedonic overconsumption? Hedonic overconsumption is often ascribed to one’s lack of self-control. This lack of self-control can happen for a variety of reasons. A tempting environment, a strong short-term desire, a lack of motivation and effort investment, a lack of control capacity or situational constraints on action, or ill-chosen strategies are just a few of the reasons mentioned in the literature (Murphy et al., 2024).

However, Stephen L. Murphy and his colleagues propose that hedonic overconsumption is often about regulating the joy level we expect from experiences. They propose that if we experience “hedonic shortfalls,” i.e., if we do not experience the amount of joy we expected to derive from hedonic consumption, we will want to consume more to compensate for this shortfall (Murphy et al., 2024).

 

If we do not experience the amount of joy we expect to derive from hedonic consumption, we will want to consume more to compensate for this shortfall.

 

For example, if something distracts us while watching a movie and our minds wander from the movie, we will not experience the joy we expected. This will make us more likely to re-watch the movie, or at least the part we missed. That way, we will spend more time watching the movie in total.

The current studies

To test their hypotheses, these researchers conducted two studies and a meta-analysis. The meta-analysis focused on published scientific studies that reported associations between being distracted from joyful activities and the amount of joy experienced. It confirmed the study authors’ expectations—when people were distracted from a joyful activity, they tended to report lower levels of enjoyment.

In the first study, researchers asked 122 young people between 18 and 24 years of age to participate in an online survey. The instructions were to start the survey before lunch. At this point, among other things, they reported on how much they expected to enjoy their lunch.

Then, they were randomly allocated into three groups. Researchers told one group to eat lunch without distractions (“No distraction”), the second group to watch an online video while they ate (“Mild distraction”), and the third group to play Tetris during their lunch (“High distraction”).

After lunch, participants reported how much they ate, how much they enjoyed lunch, how much they were distracted, and how much they desired further gratification. Before dinner, on the same day, participants reported how many snacks they consumed since lunch and on how many occasions (see Figure 1).

 

Figure 1. The first study (Murphy et al., 2024)

 

The second study utilized the experience sampling approach. Over a 7-day period, study authors would send surveys (7 per day) to 220 adult participants on their mobile devices, asking them to report on their hedonic consumption activities since the previous survey. The activities included eating, drinking, smoking, gambling, drug use, gaming, use of media/audio devices for leisure, leisure reading, sport, and exercise. Participants reported various details of such activities, such as how much they expected to enjoy the activity and how much they enjoyed it.

Insufficient enjoyment leads to further consumption

Results of the first study showed that distraction during lunch was not consistently linked with the enjoyment of lunch. Although there was a very weak tendency for those experiencing more distraction to report less enjoyment, it was so weak that authors could not be sure they were not simply looking at random variations in data.

However, participants who enjoyed their lunch less tended to feel a greater need for further gratification. Participants who felt a greater need for further gratification tended to snack more frequently and consume higher amounts of snacks afterward.

 

Participants who enjoyed their lunch less tended to feel a greater need for further gratification. 

 

Distraction during hedonic consumption is associated with less enjoyment

Results of the second study showed that individuals who experienced more distraction during a hedonic activity tended to report less enjoyment in the activity. When participants experienced less joy than they expected from the hedonic consumption they engaged in, they tended to be less satisfied with it. As expected, when they were not satisfied with the hedonic consumption they experienced, participants were more likely to engage in overconsumption, i.e., do more of the hedonic activity in question (see Figure 2).

 

Figure 2. The second study (Murphy et al., 2024)

 

Conclusion

This set of studies provides initial support for the idea that hedonic overconsumption can result from insufficient joy derived from hedonic activities.

If people derive insufficient enjoyment from their meals, they will be more likely to overeat if it is less than what they expected. This seems to apply to all hedonic consumptions, i.e., to all activities we conduct for pleasure. These findings point to a new aspect that weight loss programs and programs aiming to tackle other forms of excessive overconsumption (e.g., excessive betting, gambling, drinking…) need to be taken into account.

The paper “Underwhelming Pleasures: Toward a Self-Regulatory Account of Hedonic Compensation and Overconsumption” was authored by Stephen L. Murphy, Floor van Meer, Lotte van Dillen, Henk van Steenbergen, and Wilhelm Hofmann.

 

References

Brondel, L., Romer, M. A., Nougues, P. M., Touyarou, P., & Davenne, D. (2010). Acute partial sleep deprivation increases food intake in healthy men. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 91(6), 1550–1559. https://doi.org/10.3945/ajcn.2009.28523

Cappuccio, F. P., Taggart, F. M., Kandala, N.-B., Currie, A., ChB, M., Peile, E., & Miller, M. A. (2008). Meta-Analysis of Short Sleep Duration and Obesity in Children and Adults. 31(5).

Dhar, R., & Wertenbroch, K. (2000). Consumer Choice between Hedonic and Utilitarian Goods. Journal of Marketing Research, 37(1), 60–71. https://doi.org/10.1509/jmkr.37.1.60.18718

Hillman, D. R., & Lack, L. C. (2013). Public health implications of sleep loss: The community burden. Medical Journal of Australia, 199(8), S7–S10. https://doi.org/10.5694/mja13.10620

Murphy, S. L., Van Meer, F., Van Dillen, L., Van Steenbergen, H., & Hofmann, W. (2024). Underwhelming pleasures: Toward a self-regulatory account of hedonic compensation and overconsumption. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspa0000389