Breaking Bread: the Functions of Social Eating

Eating with the Enemy: On the Dubious Benefits of Breaking Bread with Holders of Opposing Views

We test the impact of a broadly utilized social ritual, namely sharing food with an ideological opponent, on two phenomena relevant to dispute resolution: receptiveness to the opponent’s views and attitude strength. Participants engaged in a debate about a contentious socio-political issue while eating a sandwich that they either made for themselves (Control condition) or one that was made for ...

Breaking bread with the dead.

The establishment of two international ad hoc tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, and the creation of an International Criminal Court within the next fi ve years, has increased the need for archaeologists who can assist in the exhumation of individual and mass graves associated with war crimes and genocide throughout the world. This work examines the efforts of teams of archaeologis...

Characterization of Norwegian women eating wholegrain bread.

OBJECTIVE To investigate dietary and non-dietary characteristics of wholegrain bread eaters in the Norwegian Women and Cancer study. DESIGN Cross-sectional study using an FFQ. SETTING Women were divided into two groups according to wholegrain bread consumption. SUBJECTS Adult women (n 69 471). RESULTS Median daily consumption of standardized slices of wholegrain bread was 2·5 in the low...

Of Love and Liberation: a Review of Breaking Bread

The social facilitation of eating or the facilitation of social eating?

People eat more when they eat in groups. Various explanations have been offered for this "social facilitation" of eating. We consider these explanations and find most of them wanting, especially insofar as they do not take into account the increased per capita provision of food when people eat together. We suggest that people often prefer to eat in groups precisely because it offers them an opp...