Roel Hermans
Title project:
Social modeling of food intake: dispositional and contextual factors in social comparison
Abstract:
Experimental taste-test studies have shown that social modeling effects on food intake are extremely powerful and may even overwhelm feelings of hunger and satiety. However, it is not clear why and under what conditions people model each others’ eating behavior. According tot social-comparison theory, uncertainty is the main factor responsible for the fact that people imitate each others’ behaviors. The overall aim of the proposed project is to gain insight into the underlying mechanisms of social-modeling effects on food intake by examining whether and how dispositional and contextual uncertainty moderates social modeling of eating. In addition to the classical taste-test paradigm, we employ an experimental-observational paradigm in which individuals are confronted with a peer eating in a more naturalistic context, an observation room furnished as a living room.