Failure to report social influences on food intake: lack of awareness or motivated denial?

Objective: Two studies examined whether people are aware of social influences on food intake, and whether recognition of those influences is driven by the observation of mimicked eating and/or matching the amount of food eaten.

Method: In Study 1, participants watched a video of 1 person eating alone, or a video of 2 people eating together that varied in the extent to which the target's eating behavior mimicked or matched that of the model. Participants then made attributions for the eating behavior of the target person. In Study 2, each participant watched a video of herself eating with a confederate and made attributions for her own eating behavior. In both studies, the outcome of interest was the extent to which each participant acknowledged the influence of the model's eating behavior on the target's (or her own) food intake.

Results: In Study 1, participants accurately recognized social influences on the food intake of the target person, and this recognition was facilitated by the presence of mimicked eating, but not by matching the total amount eaten. Study 2 showed that the extent to which people acknowledge social influences on their own food intake depended on their self-reported general responsiveness to social cues on eating.

Conclusion: Overall, people seem to be aware that social factors can influence others' food intake. Whereas some people (high social eaters) are able to accurately report social influences on their own food intake, others (low social eaters) seem to deny those influences for reasons that merit future investigation.