Research on Eating Behavior and Obesity: Where Does it Fit in Personality and Social Psychology?

Abstract

The study of human eating behavior provides a model for understanding the operation of a system of motivated behaviors involving the integration of physiological, sensory, cognitive, social and cultural inputs in a control system to which they are all essential. A review of current research in the area demonstrates the reciprocal relationship of these factors and indicates that eating must be examined at many different levels of analysis and with mul tiple methodologies. Work on eating and obesity suggests conceptual issues relevant to the use of the internal-external dichotomy in social psychology and has importance for research on stigmatiza tion and deviance, self perception, control and predictability, group processes, and individual differences. Research on eating behavior further demonstrates how conceptual analyses evolve in settings and for problems which were not specifically created to test theory.