Eating plays a central role in many social activities, and there is ample evidence to suggest that social context exerts a pervasive and powerful influence on what, and how much, people eat. This chapter presents an overview of the research on social influences on eating, with a specific focus on three main areas. First, we present evidence that people tend to adapt their food choices to those of other people, which is known as modelling. Second, we discuss evidence that people use their eating behaviors to convey a favorable impression of themselves to other people, which is known as impression management. Third, we present evidence on the social facilitation of eating, which is the tendency for people to eat more when eating with friends/family than they do when they eat alone. Throughout the chapter, we discuss the factors which may moderate the strength of these social influences on food intake and consider the mechanisms through which social influences affect eating.
CITATION STYLE
Higgs, S., & Ruddock, H. (2020). Social Influences on Eating. In Handbook of Eating and Drinking: Interdisciplinary Perspectives (pp. 277–291). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-14504-0_27
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