L2: Food Psychology Flashcards
- The challenges in food selection and how we solve this (e.g., food neophobia and food aversions)
- Clinical aspects of restricting food intake
- The role of disgust in food choice
- The role of social learning and social norms in food choice
- Multiple approaches targeting the challenges in food selection
- Aims, methods, results of intervention programs aiming to increase vegetable intake / decrease meat intake
oke
neophobia=
the unwillingness to try new things or break from routine.
food neophobia=
- people vary in their willingness to try new foods
- food neophobia varies across meat and plant dimensions, which relates to disgust sensitivity, animal empathy, and masculinity
- women scored higher on meat neophobia than men, but the sexes did not differ on plant neophobia.
- only meat neophobia uniquely predicted eating a novel insect-based snack bar.
omnivores dilemma=
we need calories, micronutrients and macronutrients but this comes with the risk of allergens, toxins and pathogens. disgust and learning food safety helps us navigate through this balance.
Function of disgusted facial expressions
- The gape (and tongue extension): expelling mouth contents
- Nose wrinkle: retard inhalation of odors
- Upper lip raise: weaker retarding effect on odor inhalation, or no functional significance with respect to oronasal rejection
verschil eten van vlees vs insecten
resources to eat insects are much lower
elicitators of disgust voorbeeld
- we have an apple
- we look for cues (rotten, smell)
- we estimate the pathogen presence
- pathogen index expected to be high/low
- expected value of contact is bad/good
- nutrition state index: if i havent eaten in 3 days, i might eat it
- contact value may increase
the garcia effect
- audiovisual cues are contingent on illness or shock
- rats associate illness/nausea with taste of water, but not with visual cues (light/sound)
- audiovisual stimulus and the taste paired with electric shock results in an avoidance of the audiovisual stimulus, but not the taste)
dus:
- Shock = drink sweetened water, avoid light and sound
- illness = avoid sweetened water, drink the water paired with light and sound
conclusie:
- prepared learning; we’d sooner avoid taste than visual cues
- rats associate illness with taste but not visual cues
elicitators of disgust model
- pathogen cue monitoring circuitry: saliva, blood, carcasses, feces
- pathogen presence estimator
- pathogen index
- expected value of contact F (pathogens, kinship, sexual attractiveness, etc): kinship index, sexual value index, nutrition state index, other indices
- contact value index
- programmes regulating pathogen/contact avoidance
(model natekenen)
finding food through trial and error is risky:
- on expedition they did not have enough food for journeys
- they saw the indigenous people eating nardoo, thought they may try it as well
- nardoo broke down an enzyme -> vitamin B deficiency -> they died because indigenous people at it in a specific way
why do people in hot countries eat more spicy food?
hypothesis: spices neutralize pathogen risk
but a study showed that variation in spice use is not explained by temperature and that spice use cannot be accounted for by diversity of cultures, plants, crops or naturally occurring spices. Patterns of spice use are not consistent with an infection-mitigation mechanism, but are part of a broader association between spice, health, and poverty.
what is the reason children often avoid greens and fruits (compared to meat and protein?)
greens have a bitter taste, therefore might have toxins, is more dangerous to children
food neophobia progression
- appears around 2 years old
- expression decreases in late childhood/beginning adolescence
- relatively stable in adulthood
factors influencing food neophobia
intrinsic influences:
- genetic
- sensory sensitivity (anticipated characteristics such as smell and structure of food, these cues can be perceived before the stimuli is tasted)
- temperament traits: emotional reactivity
extrinsic influences:
- early food experiences
- feeding practices
- social facilitation (encouraging eating)
who model the willingness to taste
parents are models for food acceptance, but peers are more effective. the models should be familiar and prosocial
