Department of Psychological Science, University of California, Irvine.
Division of Psychology, Nanyang Technological University.
Dev Psychol. 2019 Apr;55(4):703-708. doi: 10.1037/dev0000669. Epub 2018 Dec 10.
Prior studies have demonstrated that social norms or cues of others' eating behaviors serve as powerful guides for one's own eating behaviors. Yet it remains underexplored whether young children are susceptible to social pressure by remote peers when faced with a conflict between what they prefer and the healthy choices of a group majority. Here we examined whether preschool-aged children conformed to healthy food choices of remote peers. Following a modified Asch conformity paradigm, the present study used videos of remote confederates' food preferences to test whether 89 3- to 6-year-old Singaporean preschoolers conformed to remote peers' healthy food choices (fruits and vegetables). Participants were asked to make a series of food choices when faced with two food options (healthy, unhealthy), both independently and after having viewed remote peers make healthy food choices (fruits, vegetables). Results showed a significant level of conformity, such that participants altered their initially unhealthy food choices to match the healthy choices of remote peers for 29% of trials. Age and BMI z-scores were also associated with rates of food choice conformity. The finding that young children may conform to food-related behaviors of remote peers offers the potential promise of interventions involving remote peers in promoting healthier dietary choices of young children. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).
先前的研究表明，他人的饮食行为规范或暗示可以作为自己饮食行为的有力指南。然而，当儿童面临个人偏好与群体多数健康选择之间的冲突时，他们是否容易受到远程同伴的社会压力的影响，这一点仍未得到充分探索。在这里，我们研究了学龄前儿童是否会遵从远程同伴的健康食物选择。本研究采用改良的阿希从众范式，通过远程同伙的食物偏好视频，测试了 89 名 3 至 6 岁的新加坡学龄前儿童是否会遵从远程同伴的健康食物选择（水果和蔬菜）。当面对两种食物选择（健康、不健康）时，参与者被要求进行一系列食物选择，一种是独立选择，另一种是在观看远程同伴选择健康食物（水果、蔬菜）后进行选择。结果显示，参与者表现出了显著的从众行为，即在 29%的试验中，他们改变了最初的不健康食物选择，以匹配远程同伴的健康食物选择。年龄和 BMI z 分数也与食物选择从众率相关。这一发现表明，年幼的孩子可能会遵从远程同伴的与食物相关的行为，这为涉及远程同伴的干预措施提供了潜力，以促进年幼孩子更健康的饮食选择。（APA，2019，所有权利保留）。
