Edwards, Katie L., Thomas, Jason M., Higgs, Suzanne and Blissett, Jacqueline (2024). Exposure to models’ negative facial expressions whilst eating a vegetable decreases women’s liking of the modelled vegetable, but not their desire to eat. Frontiers in Psychology, 14 ,
Abstract
IntroductionFood enjoyment can be conveyed through facial expressions. Observing others’ enjoyment of food has been found to influence adults’ desirability of liked and disliked food. Exposing adults to other eaters enjoying nutritious foods that are typically disliked (e.g., vegetables) could enhance the consumption of vegetables by young adults. However, this remains to be examined in young adult populations. This study examined the effect of models’ facial expressions towards raw broccoli on young adult women’s change in liking and change in desire to eat a modelled vegetable (raw broccoli) and a non-modelled vegetable (cucumber).MethodsYoung adult women (N = 205) were randomised to watch a video of unfamiliar adult models eating raw broccoli with a positive, negative, or neutral facial expression. Participants’ change in liking and change in desire to eat the modelled and non-modelled vegetable was examined.ResultsObserving models conveying negative facial expressions whilst eating raw broccoli resulted in a statistically significant reduction in liking ratings of broccoli, but not cucumber. There was no effect of models’ facial expressions on the change in desire to eat foods.DiscussionThese findings suggest that watching others express a negative facial expression whilst eating a raw vegetable reduces women’s liking of the modelled vegetable, in the absence of a significant change to their desire to consume these foods. This highlights the power of others’ negative facial expressions on food liking. Further work is needed to establish the effect of others’ facial expressions on vegetable intake.
Publication DOI: | https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1252369 |
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Divisions: | College of Health & Life Sciences > School of Psychology College of Health & Life Sciences College of Health & Life Sciences > Aston Institute of Health & Neurodevelopment (AIHN) Aston University (General) |
Funding Information: | This research was supported by the College of Health and Life Sciences, Aston University and by the Economic and Social Research Council (Grant ref.: ES/P01027X/1). |
Additional Information: | © 2024 Edwards, Thomas, Higgs and Blissett. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. |
Uncontrolled Keywords: | desire to eat,facial expression,modeling,vegetable liking,young adults,General Psychology |
Publication ISSN: | 1664-1078 |
Last Modified: | 02 Dec 2024 09:03 |
Date Deposited: | 19 Jan 2024 15:29 |
Full Text Link: | |
Related URLs: |
https://www.fro ... 23.1252369/full
(Publisher URL) http://www.scop ... tnerID=8YFLogxK (Scopus URL) |
PURE Output Type: | Article |
Published Date: | 2024-01-11 |
Accepted Date: | 2023-10-31 |
Authors: |
Edwards, Katie L.
(
0000-0003-1076-8382)
Thomas, Jason M. ( 0000-0001-7013-8994) Higgs, Suzanne Blissett, Jacqueline ( 0000-0002-0275-6413) |