Abstract
The social context is an important factor underlying unhealthy eating behavior and the development of inappropriate weight gain. Evidence is accumulating that powerful social influences can also be used as a tool to impact people’s eating behavior in a positive manner. Social norm-based messages have potential to steer people in making healthier food choices. The research field on nutritional social norms is still emerging and more research is needed to gain insights into why some people adhere to social norms whereas others do not. There are indications stemming from empirical studies on social eating behavior that this may be due to ingratiation purposes and uncertainty reduction. That is, people match their eating behavior to that of the norm set by their eating companion(s) in order to blend in and be part of the group. In this project, we explore nutritional social norms among pregnant women. This population is particularly interesting because they are often subject to unsolicited advice and experience social pressure from their environment. In addition, their pregnancy affects their body composition, eating pattern, and psychosocial status. Pregnancy provides an important window of opportunity to impact health of pregnant women and their child. Nevertheless, the field of nutritional social norms among pregnant women is understudied and more knowledge is needed on whether pregnant women use guidelines from their social environment for their own eating behavior. In this project we aim to fill this research gap by means of an exploratory survey (Study 1) assessing information about social expectations, (mis)perceived social norms and the role of different reference groups such as other pregnant women, family, and friends. In addition, we conduct an online experiment (Study 2) testing to what extent pregnant women are susceptible to social norm-based messages compared to non-pregnant women. Moreover, possible moderators are explored which might impact women’s susceptibility to social norms as well as cultural aspects that co-determine which social norms and guidelines exist. The project’s findings could help design effective intervention messages in promoting healthy eating behavior specifically targeted to European pregnant women.
Highlights
There is substantial literature examining the general impact of the social environment on behavior (Cialdini et al, 1991), and evidence is accumulating that social influences on eating behavior are powerful as well (Christakis and Fowler, 2007; Salvy et al, 2012; Cruwys et al, 2015)
Observational social eating studies have shown that people conform their eating behavior to social norms set by others, and that people converge upon an eating norm when eating together
Pairwise comparisons are carried out with Bonferroni correction to determine significant differences between the experimental conditions. These analyses provide more insights into our hypotheses (H3&H4) that pregnant women exposed to an injunctive norm-based message would have a higher unhealthy intake than pregnant women exposed to a descriptive norm or control condition, and that this effect is stronger in non-pregnant women
Summary
There is substantial literature examining the general impact of the social environment on behavior (Cialdini et al, 1991), and evidence is accumulating that social influences on eating behavior are powerful as well (Christakis and Fowler, 2007; Salvy et al, 2012; Cruwys et al, 2015). The field of nutritional social norms among pregnant women is understudied (Gardner et al, 2012; Hutchinson et al, 2017) This population is of interest in particular, because pregnancy is a crucial period in life at which women may be more or less susceptible to social norms and dietary change than usual (Campbell et al, 2011). Pregnant women often experience that they receive unsolicited advice from everyone who knows or sees they are pregnant, and they have to deal with many implicit as well as explicit rules they are subject to by their pregnancy (Root and Browner, 2001; Graham et al, 2013) They may feel ‘allowed’ to consume more unhealthy foods as their body composition changes and weight gain is more socially acceptable, despite being aware that their unborn child benefits from healthy eating (Campbell et al, 2011). The overarching goal of this project is to gain more insight into whether and how social norms play a role in pregnant women’s eating behavior
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
