School of Psychology, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK.
School of Psychology, UNSW, Sydney, Australia.
Sci Rep. 2021 May 26;11(1):11072. doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-90559-y.
One of the most powerful influences on food intake yet identified is the presence of familiar others at an eating occasion: people eat much more when they eat with friends/family than when they eat alone. But why this is the case is unclear. Across two studies (Study 1: N = 98; Study 2: N = 120), we found that the mere anticipation of social interaction is all that is needed to promote the selection of larger meals, and that this occurs even when a person is alone when they make their decision. Adult women served themselves larger portions when they knew they were going to eat socially versus when they knew they were going to eat alone. These data suggest that how other people influence our food intake reaches beyond the specific eating context to affect pre-meal portion size decisions, suggesting that a fundamental shift is required in our thinking about social influences on eating.
迄今为止，对食物摄入影响最大的因素之一是在进食时存在熟悉的他人：与朋友/家人一起进食时，人们会比独自进食时吃得更多。但原因尚不清楚。在两项研究中（研究 1：N=98；研究 2：N=120），我们发现，仅仅预期社交互动就足以促进选择更大份量的食物，即使一个人在做出决定时独自一人也是如此。当成年女性知道自己要社交用餐时，她们会给自己盛更大份量的食物，而不是独自用餐时。这些数据表明，他人对我们食物摄入的影响超出了特定的进食环境，会影响餐前份量的决定，这表明我们需要对社交对进食的影响的思维方式进行根本转变。
