Rhythm in food intake: The effects of the intake of others on young women's food intake in micro-perspective

Abstract

Numerous experimental studies have already demonstrated that people adjust their food intake to that of their eating companions. Until now, these studies have mostly used a normative framework to explain why people eat more or less when their eating companions eat more or less. Another possibility, however, is that social modeling processes may be caused by behavioral mimicry, whereby the food intake of one person triggers a mimicked response by the other person. In the current study, we investigated whether young women synchronize their intake (in bites) to that of their same-sex eating companion, a process that may be linked to behavioral mimicry. We observed and coded both the participant's and confederate's timing of bites taken during a 20-min eating opportunity. Synchronization was operationalized as participant's bite within 5 s after a confederate's bite. A total of 72 young women (mainly university students) participated. Analyses reveal that participants' synchronize their intake to that of their eating companion. That is, they are likely to take a bite directly after their eating companion has done so. This may suggest that people not only model the overall intake of their eating companion, but also synchronize their intake patterns (in bites) to that of their eating companion.