Scarce Foods are Perceived as Having More Calories

Abstract

People vary dramatically in their calorie estimates of food depending on the information available to them. Prior research has focused on information that is normatively relevant to the number of calories a food contains (e.g., fat content, serving size). The current research examines whether information that is normatively irrelevant to the number of calories a food contains—such as its availability—might also shape people's calorie estimates. Three studies found that a food perceived as limited in availability leads people to estimate the food to contain more calories. Serial mediation analyses revealed that this effect occurs because scarce food is seen as more valuable and expensive, which subsequently induces feelings of resource deprivation. This sense of resource deprivation, in turn, leads to motivated perception, whereby higher calorie estimates are the result of people wanting to acquire more resources. The findings provide insight into the psychology of scarcity and underscore the importance of understanding how contextual factors shape people's calorie estimates and the psychological mechanisms that drive them.