Liking food less: the impact of social influence on food liking evaluations in female students

Social factors are known to influence food intake and choice. However, whether social influence acts on evaluations of food and drink liking has not been studied. Across two studies, we tested whether leading a participant to believe that other people do not like a food affects food liking evaluations. In Study 1, we exposed participants to social normative information suggesting a) that an in-group disliked orange juice, b) that an out-group disliked orange juice or c) that an in-group were neutral about orange juice. We then examined how much participants believed they liked orange juice. In Study 2, participants consumed a snack food before being led to believe that two previous participants had also eaten the food and either disliked or quite liked it. We asked participants to rate how much they had enjoyed eating the snack food. Across both studies, social influence was observed, as underlined by decreases in liking evaluations. In Study 1, beliefs about liking were only influenced by social normative information when the norm was expressed by an in-group. In Study 2, exposure to others' accounts of a negative experience with a food decreased evaluated liking of the recent consumption experience. These results suggest that social influence can act upon food liking evaluations.