How information about what is "healthy" versus "unhealthy" impacts children's consumption of otherwise identical foods

Can brief messages about health influence children’s consumption of identical foods? Across a series of studies, we manipulated children’s consumption of identical foods (fruit sauces) by pairing those foods with brief messages about each food’s health status. What initially appeared to be a preference for foods described as healthy among 5- to 6-year-old children (Studies 1–2) actually reflected a preference for alternatives to foods described as unhealthy (Studies 3–5), including comparison foods that were described with negative or neutral content. Although the 2 foods on each trial were identical, children consistently ate more of the alternative to a food described as unhealthy. Similar effects were observed among 8- to 9-year-old children (Study 6). These results demonstrate that children’s eating behavior is affected by messages they receive from other people, including messages about health. Further, these studies reveal basic psychological mechanisms that contribute to children’s choices among foods, which could lead to effective interventions in the food domain

Evaluations versus expectations: Children’s divergent beliefs about resource distribution

Past research reveals a tension between children's preferences for egalitarianism and ingroup favoritism when distributing resources to others. Here we investigate how children's evaluations and expectations of others' behaviors compare. Four- to 10-year-old children viewed events where individuals from two different groups distributed resources to their own group, to the other group, or equally across groups. Groups were described within a context of intergroup competition over scarce resources. In the Evaluation condition, children were asked to evaluate which resource distribution actions were nicer. In the Expectation condition, children were asked to predict which events were more likely to occur. With age, children's evaluations and expectations of others' actions diverged: Children evaluated egalitarian actions as nicer yet expected others to behave in ways that benefit their own group. Thus, children's evaluations about the way human social actors should behave do not mirror their expectations concerning those individuals' actions

Mere social knowledge impacts children’s consumption and categorization of foods

How does social information affect the perception of taste early in life? Does mere knowledge of other people's food preferences impact children's own experience when eating? In Experiment 1, 5- and 6-year-old children consumed more of a food described as popular with other children than a food that was described as unpopular with other children, even though the two foods were identical. In Experiment 2, children ate more of a food described as popular with children than a food described as popular with adults. Experiment 3 tested whether different perceptual experiences of otherwise identical foods contributed to the mechanisms underlying children's consumption. After sampling both endpoints of a sweet-to-sour range (applesauce with 0 mL or 5mL of lemon juice added), children were asked to taste and categorize applesauce samples with varying amounts of lemon juice added. When classifying ambiguous samples that were near the midpoint of the range (2 mL and 3 mL), children were more likely to categorize popular foods as sweet as compared to unpopular foods. Together, these findings provide evidence that social information plays a powerful role in guiding children's consumption and perception of foods. Broader links to the sociality of food selection are discussed

“American = English Speaker” Before “American = White”: The Development of Children's Reasoning About Nationality

Adults implicitly judge people from certain social backgrounds as more “American” than others. This study tests the development of children's reasoning about nationality and social categories. Children across cultures (White and Korean American children in the United States, Korean children in South Korea) judged the nationality of individuals varying in race and language. Across cultures, 5- to 6-year-old children (N = 100) categorized English speakers as “American” and Korean speakers as “Korean” regardless of race, suggesting that young children prioritize language over race when thinking about nationality. Nine- and 10-year-olds (N = 181) attended to language and race and their nationality judgments varied across cultures. These results suggest that associations between nationality and social category membership emerge early in life and are shaped by cultural context

Bilingual children’s social preferences hinge on accent

Past research finds that monolingual and bilingual children prefer native speakers to individuals who speak in unfamiliar foreign languages or accents. Do children in bilingual contexts socially distinguish among familiar languages and accents and, if so, how do their social preferences based on language and accent compare? The current experiments tested whether 5- to 7-year-olds in two bilingual contexts in the United States demonstrate social preferences among the languages and accents that are present in their social environments. We compared children’s preferences based on language (i.e., English vs. their other native language) and their preferences based on accent (i.e., English with a native accent vs. English with a non-native [yet familiar] accent). In Experiment 1, children attending a French immersion school demonstrated no preference between English and French speakers but preferred American-accented English to French-accented English. In Experiment 2, bilingual Korean American children demonstrated no preference between English and Korean speakers but preferred American-accented English to Korean-accented English. Across studies, bilingual children’s preferences based on accent (i.e., American-accented English over French- or Korean-accented English) were not related to their own language dominance. These results suggest that children from diverse linguistic backgrounds demonstrate social preferences for native-accented speakers. Implications for understanding the potential relation between social reasoning and language acquisition are discussed

Implicit attitudes, eating behavior, and the development of obesity

Nettle et al. describe increasing food intake (relative to energy expenditure) in response to food insecurity as a key contributor to obesity. I argue that a variety of implicit psychological mechanisms underlie this process to contribute to weight gain. The biobehavioral pathways and the social nature of food selection discussed here are importantly related to food selection and obesity

Eww she sneezed! Contamination context affects children's food preferences and consumption

Does contextual information about disgust influence children's food consumption and subjective experience of taste? Three- to eight-year-old children (N = 60) were presented with two identical foods, yet children were led to believe that one food had been contaminated by sneezing and licking, while the other was clean. When given the opportunity to eat the foods, 5- to 8-year-old children consumed more clean food and rated the clean food's taste more positively; younger children did not distinguish between the foods. The relation between contamination and subjective taste held even among children who ate both foods and had direct evidence that they were identical. These data indicate that children's consumption behavior and food preferences are influenced by information external to foods themselves

Understanding infants' and children's social learning about foods: Previous research and new prospects

Developmental psychologists have devoted significant attention to investigating how children learn from others' actions, emotions, and testimony. Yet most of this research has examined children's socially guided learning about artifacts. The present article focuses on a domain that has received limited attention from those interested in the development of social cognition: food. We begin by reviewing the available literature on infants' and children's development in the food domain and identify situations in which children evidence both successes and failures in their interactions with foods. We focus specifically on the role that other people play in guiding what children eat and argue that understanding patterns of successes and failures in the food domain requires an appreciation of eating as a social phenomenon. We next propose a series of questions for future research and suggest that examining food selection as a social phenomenon can shed light on mechanisms underlying children's learning from others and provide ideas for promoting healthy social relationships and eating behaviors early in development

Children's sociolinguistic evaluations of nice foreigners and mean Americans

Three experiments investigated 5- to 6-year-old monolingual English-speaking American children's sociolinguistic evaluations of others based on their accent (native, foreign) and social actions (nice, mean, neutral). In Experiment 1, children expressed social preferences for native-accented English speakers over foreign-accented speakers, and they judged the native-accented speakers to be 'American.' In Experiments 2 and 3, the accented speakers were depicted as being nicer than the relatively meaner native speakers. Children's social preferences and judgments of others' personalities varied as a function of behavior; in particular, children disliked individuals who committed negative social actions. In contrast, children's judgments of nationality hinged exclusively on accent; across all conditions, children evaluated native-accented English speakers to be 'American,' regardless of whether they were nice or mean. These findings contribute to an understanding of the nature of children's reasoning about language as a social category and have implications for future research investigating children's thinking about language as a marker of national group identity

An investigation of maternal food intake and maternal food talk as predictors of child food intake

Though parental modeling is thought to play a critical role in promoting children's healthy eating, little research has examined maternal food intake and maternal food talk as independent predictors of children's food intake. The present study examines maternal food talk during a structured eating protocol, in which mothers and their children had the opportunity to eat a series of familiar and unfamiliar vegetables and desserts. Several aspects of maternal talk during the protocol were coded, including overall food talk, directives, pronoun use, and questions. This study analyzed the predictors of maternal food talk and whether maternal food talk and maternal food intake predicted children's food intake during the protocol. Higher maternal body mass index (BMI) predicted lower amounts of food talk, pronoun use, and questions. Higher child BMI z-scores predicted more first person pronouns and more wh-questions within maternal food talk. Mothers of older children used fewer directives, fewer second person pronouns, and fewer yes/no questions. However, maternal food talk (overall and specific types of food talk) did not predict children's food intake. Instead, the most robust predictor of children's food intake during this protocol was the amount of food that mothers ate while sitting with their children. These findings emphasize the importance of modeling healthy eating through action and have implications for designing interventions to provide parents with more effective tools to promote their children's healthy eating