University of Mannheim, School of Social Sciences, Health Psychology, L 13, 17, 68161, Mannheim, Germany.
University of Mannheim, School of Business Informatics and Mathematics, Data and Web Science, B 6, 26, 68159, Mannheim, Germany.
Appetite. 2024 Sep 1;200:107518. doi: 10.1016/j.appet.2024.107518. Epub 2024 May 25.
Social media is an increasingly important yet understudied context for eating behaviors in general and veganism in particular. In four studies, we first explored and described the information environment the platform Instagram presents related to veganism. Second, we examined how engaging with this environment is associated with offline eating intentions via psychological mechanisms. We scraped datasets of Instagram posts tagged with #vegan (44,316 posts in total) and employed network analysis with their hashtags (Study 1), as well as clustering with images and sentiment analysis with texts (Study 2). Studies 3 (N = 117) and 4 (N = 251) used online surveys to investigate associations between different forms of engaging with social media content, psychological constructs, and offline eating intentions. Posts about veganism were frequently related to food, health and fitness, cosmetics, and photography. Images most often depicted food (34.7%), non-food products (30.4%), people (7.9%), and animals (2.0%). The sentiment of most posts was positive. Being exposed to Instagram content about veganism was more strongly and consistently associated with eating intentions than active forms of engagement. Attitude and self-identity emerged as the most relevant mechanisms for these effects. Food is the most prominent yet not sole topic among posts about veganism on Instagram, and hashtags used in this context partially relate to motives for following a vegan diet. Exposure to this information environment might influence offline eating decisions via psychological mechanisms. With growing usage and its potential influence, social media should receive increasing attention in (health) psychological research and practice.
社交媒体是一个越来越重要但研究不足的情境，对于一般的饮食行为，特别是素食主义有很大影响。在四项研究中，我们首先探索和描述了 Instagram 平台呈现的与素食主义相关的信息环境。其次，我们通过心理机制研究了与该环境互动与线下饮食意图的关系。我们从 Instagram 上标记为#vegan 的帖子中提取了数据集（总共有 44316 个帖子），并使用标签网络分析（研究 1）以及图片聚类和文本情感分析（研究 2）进行了分析。研究 3（N=117）和 4（N=251）使用在线调查来研究不同形式的社交媒体内容互动、心理结构与线下饮食意图之间的关联。关于素食主义的帖子通常与食物、健康和健身、美容和摄影有关。图片最常描绘的是食物（34.7%）、非食物产品（30.4%）、人（7.9%）和动物（2.0%）。大多数帖子的情绪是积极的。接触 Instagram 上的素食主义内容与饮食意图的相关性更强且更一致，而积极的互动形式则不然。态度和自我认同是这些影响的最相关机制。在 Instagram 上关于素食主义的帖子中，食物是最突出但不是唯一的主题，并且在此背景下使用的标签部分与遵循素食主义饮食的动机有关。通过心理机制，这种信息环境可能会影响线下饮食决策。随着社交媒体的使用越来越多，以及其潜在的影响，它应该在（健康）心理研究和实践中受到越来越多的关注。
