Saturday, June 18, 2016

Do You Know How Much You Are Eating?

If you are like most people, when you try to decide how well you are functioning in virtually any area of life you compare yourself with some reference group of people.  And, generally, the people you choose for comparison are those with whom you identity—relatives, friends, and neighbors—or those of high status, such as celebrities.  Leon Festinger (1954) pioneered this “social comparison theory” long ago, and decades of research certify its continuing and contemporary relevance.  Social comparison exerts particular influence due to "social desirability," a natural tendency to report our behavior in ways that enhance our social standing (Milham, 1972).  When we and our reference group members portray ourselves as favorably as possible, we are inclined to set unrealistically high comparison standards.  What might be the implications for our health-relevant lifestyles?

Let's think about eating habits.  Aaron M. Scherer and his co-investigators (2016) were interested in exploring motivation for dietary change.  They specifically looked at the extent, sources, and methods of measurement by which people decide the foods to change, and how to change them.  In four experiments, the participants either directly or indirectly compared their own consumption with that of their peers.  The information relevant for our discussion was as follows.

First, when subjects compared their consumption of healthy, common foods (e.g., apples), healthy, uncommon foods (e.g., cauliflower), unhealthy, common foods (e.g., French fries), and unhealthy, uncommon foods (e.g., onion rings) with that of peers, they claimed to consume less food overall and considerably less unhealthful food than their peers.   Second, the motivation of subjects was important.  In some circumstances motivated bias (due to a person’s strong desire to achieve a certain goal, such as weight reduction) was a primary factor and in others, non-motivated bias due to an egocentric excessive preoccupation with oneself when others should have been considered.  Non-motivated bias, for instance, described a general tendency in which subjects erroneously thought that their behaviors were superior to those of others.  Thus, some persons confidently believed that that they ate fewer donuts than their peers when they clearly had not.  Third, motivated bias was most apparent both for foods widely perceived as healthful and for those widely perceived as unhealthful, overestimating consumption of the former and underestimating that of the latter. 

There are several major takeaways from the Scherer study.  One concerns how to create an interpersonal environment that facilitates your healthful lifestyle goals: Knowing that you probably tend to establish objectives in sync with your reference group, you do well to identify with and to fraternize with persons who share your healthful objectives.  Another is taking care to develop as objective a progress-tracking system as possible.  Keep in mind the always-present temptation toward motivated and non-motivated biases that delude you into believing that you are progressing more than you truly are.  Beware of the related distortion that you are more likely to over-count your successes and to under-count your failures.  Finally, realize that the more you value your goal and/or the more competitive you are with members of your reference group, the greater the conscious or unconscious predilection to ignore uncomfortable shortcomings and to exaggerate minor achievements.

By following the aforementioned guidelines, you will know how much you are eating and what, if anything, to do about it.  And since social comparison and social desirability are likely to operate whenever you assess your health-related behaviors, you should take measures to resist its distortions.     

References:


Festinger L (1954). "A theory of social comparison processes". Human relations 7 (2): 117–140. doi:10.1177/001872675400700202.

Millham, J. The need for social approval: An evaluation. Coral Gables, Florida: Cognitive and Language Laboratory, 1972.

Scherer, A. M., et al. (2016). Sources of bias in peoples’ social-comparative estimates of food consumption. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, Vol 22(2), Jun 2016, 173-183. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/xap0000081.

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