Personality, perceived appropriateness, and acknowledgement of social influences on food intake

a r t i c l e i n f o Social influences are powerful determinants of food intake. Whereas some people are willing to acknowledge social influences on their food intake, others seem to actively deny being influenced by social cues. Across three samples (total n = 835), we examined factors that prior theory and research suggest might predict people's willingness to acknowledge social influences on their food intake. These included conformity, self-monitoring, sociotropy, self-esteem, empathy, and the Big Five personality traits. Conformity, self-monitoring, and sociotropy were the most consistent predictors of acknowledgement of social influences on food intake, and conscientious-ness was also related to acknowledgement of social influences. Furthermore, those effects were mediated by the extent to which people believe that eating in response to social cues is appropriate. These findings suggest that people who are more concerned with, and attuned to, the social world are more willing to acknowledge being influenced by social factors. Importantly, individuals who are less willing to acknowledge social influences on their food intake may not actually be any less influenced by social cues. Failing to acknowledge social influences on food intake could have implications for people's ability to regulate their eating appropriately and also for their self-evaluations. Social context is a powerful determinant of behavior. One domain in which social factors are particularly potent is in influencing people's food intake. For example, people adjust their food intake to model that of their eating companions, eating little when their companions eat only a little, and eating more when their companions eat more 2015). This modeling effect is one of the most robust influences on food intake. Modeling has been demonstrated in a number of corre-lational and experimental studies, and is observed under a wide variety of conditions. For example, modeling occurs with snack foods have been food-deprived for up to 24 h (Goldman, Herman, & Polivy, 1991). Modeling persists even when the model is not physically present and participants are exposed instead to a " remote confederate " list indicating the amount of food eaten by supposed prior participants (Roth, Herman, Polivy, & Pliner, 2001). Despite a substantial body of research demonstrating that social factors can strongly influence food intake, people typically fail to acknowledge these influences when explaining their eating behavior (Vartanian, Herman, & Wansink, 2008). For example, a series of experiments by Vartanian, Sokol, Herman, and Polivy (2013a) showed that, although …