Chair Group Strategic Communication, Wageningen University & Research, Wageningen, the Netherlands; Chair Group Consumption and Healthy Lifestyles, Wageningen University & Research, Wageningen, the Netherlands.
Chair Group Knowledge, Technology and Innovation, Wageningen University & Research, Wageningen, the Netherlands.
Appetite. 2019 Dec 1;143:104414. doi: 10.1016/j.appet.2019.104414. Epub 2019 Aug 22.
It is widely accepted that physical food environments can contribute to unhealthy eating, but less is known about how physical cues in these environments actually stimulate eating. Our study starts from the assumption that social norms are embedded in physical cues and aims to make an inventory of physical cues that communicate what is socially accepted as normal and/or appropriate to eat in a Dutch outside-the-home food context. In Study 1, we conducted a qualitative study in which photographs taken in self-service food environments were analyzed using strategies from photo documentation and semiology. Grounded theory was applied to identify a wide variety of specific physical cues that were ultimately grouped into 18 higher level categories of physical cues (e.g. consumption traces, product availability). Most cue categories were associated with either descriptive or injunctive social norms, but some were associated with both types. In Study 2, we aimed to quantitatively cross-validate the social norm interpretations among laypeople (N = 173) by focusing on two selected photographs. More than half of the physical cues that participants identified in these photographs as being influential had been identified in Study 1 as cues bearing a normative message. The results further indicated that other people's behavior is easier to recognize in physical food environments than signals about what ought to be done. Given the great variety of identified physical cues associated with social norms, we posit that social norms are widely embedded in food environments and might guide eating behavior. Further research should study the effects of these cues on behavior and test whether the underlying process can be attributed to social norm interpretations.
人们普遍认为，物理食品环境会导致不健康的饮食，但对于这些环境中的物理线索如何实际刺激饮食，人们知之甚少。我们的研究从社会规范嵌入物理线索这一假设出发，旨在列出在荷兰户外食品环境中，传达什么是社会认可的正常和/或适宜食物的物理线索。在研究 1 中，我们进行了一项定性研究，使用照片记录和符号学的策略分析了自助食品环境中的照片。扎根理论被应用于识别出各种各样的具体物理线索，这些线索最终被分为 18 个更高层次的物理线索类别（例如，消费痕迹、产品可用性）。大多数线索类别与描述性或指令性社会规范有关，但有些线索与这两种类型都有关。在研究 2 中，我们通过关注两张选定的照片，旨在定量地交叉验证非专业人士（N=173）对社会规范的解释。参与者在这些照片中识别出的影响较大的物理线索中，有一半以上在研究 1 中被确定为带有规范信息的线索。结果进一步表明，与关于应该做什么的信号相比，人们更容易在物理食品环境中识别他人的行为。鉴于与社会规范相关的物理线索种类繁多，我们假设社会规范广泛存在于食品环境中，并可能指导饮食行为。进一步的研究应该研究这些线索对行为的影响，并检验潜在的过程是否可以归因于社会规范的解释。
