introduction to psychology - summary, analysis and critique of priming effects of television food...

CRITIQUE OF RESEARCH ON FOOD ADS AND EATING BEHAVIOR

Paper 1: summary, analysis and critique of

Priming Effects of Television Food Advertising on

Eating Behavior

Sarah Lee Shan Yun

Parsons The New School for Design

ULEC 2160 Introduction to Psychology

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Abstract

This paper summarizes and critiques a study done in 2009 by Harris, Bargh

and Brownell on the Priming Effects of Television Food Advertising on Eating

Behavior. In the article, Harris et al. hypothesized that TV food advertising found in

television programs will prime an automatic increase in snack food consumption of

any available foods in both elementary-school-aged children and adults. They also

hypothesized that exposure to food advertising that promotes fun and excitement,

rather than nutrition benefits, will prime an increase in snack food consumption in

adults.

Although the paper was thoroughly analyzed and well presented, their study

was not in-depth enough and did not explain the types of advertising that triggered

increased snack food consumption.

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Article summary

According to Harris et al., a “further understanding of the mechanisms that

produced (the) priming effects (of food advertising) is needed to enable educators

and parents to more effectively protect children and themselves against unhealthy

food advertising influence.” (2009, p.411) The authors discussed social

consequences, such as the obesity epidemic (2009, p.404), and how there is a

probable link between the amount of food advertising viewed on TV and unhealthy

consumption habits in both children and adults. Reprehensible messages are being

proliferated by the media, encouraging an overconsumption of the wrong types of

foods. The authors have also stated the need for further research to identify a direct

causal link between food advertising and unhealthy diets (2009, p.404). They were

also interested in investigating the effects of different kinds of food advertisements

on eating behavior, particularly ‘nutritious’ food advertising versus ‘fun’ food

advertising, stating that there is a lack of research currently available (2009, p.405).

In the 2 experiments conducted by Harris et al., they hypothesized that TV

food advertising will prime an automatic increase in snack food consumption of any

available foods in both elementary-school-aged children and adults (2009, p.405).

They also hypothesized that food advertising would prompt the consumption of

foods that was not shown in the advertisements (2009, p.405). These hypotheses

were based on previous research of the correlation between heavy media viewing

and unhealthy diets amongst children (IOM, 2008) as well as other experiments

conducted that showed how children chose less healthy snack foods after viewing

candy advertisements daily over a 2-week period (Gorn & Goldberg, 1982). In the

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second experiment conducted on adults, they hypothesized that exposure to food

advertising that promotes fun and excitement, rather than nutrition benefits, will

prime an increase in snack food consumption (Harris et al., 2009, p.407). Some of

the social cognitive theories presented by Harris et al. include priming as an

automatic response system of humans to imitate and mimic behavior presented to

them unconsciously and unintentionally after activation (2009, p.405). This is

further supported by the theory of hedonic hunger, which is used to describe the

“thoughts, feelings and urges about food in the absence of energy deficits” (Lowe

and Burtyn, 2007, p.432). Harris et al. also presented the idea that external cues

such as packaging size and shape can affect the amount of snack foods consumed by

the eater unconsciously (Wansink, 2006). They also mentioned theories such as ego-

depletion or cognitive load conditions, which cause restricted eaters (mainly female

dieters) to be more affected than others by food advertising, prompting them to

consume a greater amount of unhealthy foods (Harris et al., p.411).

To conduct the experiment, the researchers measured the amount of snack

foods consumed during and after the advertising exposure in grams as the

dependent variable (2009, p.404). For the first experiment, one group of

elementary-school-aged children was exposed to four 30-second food commercials

during a 14-minute episode of a cartoon. The other group watched the same cartoon

with four 30-second non-food commercials (2009, p.406). The amount of goldfish

crackers eaten by both groups was measured in grams and compared. In the second

experiment, five snack foods ranging from very healthy to unhealthy were

presented to the participants. The participants were divided into three groups:

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those that were exposed to food advertisements that contained fun and exciting

messages, food advertisements that contained messages on nutrition and health,

and advertisements that were non-food related (the control group) (2009, p.408).

The amount of each of the five snack foods consumed by the participants during the

16-minute comedy TV program was measured in grams. Another dependent

variable measured was the total amount of time the participants spent eating (2009,

p.409).

For the first experiment, 118 children between the ages of 7 to 11 years were

recruited. 63 (about 53%) of them were recruited from a more ethnically and

socioeconomically diverse school district. Participants were proportionally sampled

according to weight to meet the incidence of at-risk and overweight children in the

U.S. of 35%. Parents of the children were surveyed on TV viewing rates prior to the

experiment (2009, p.406). For the second experiment, 98 university students

between the ages of 18 to 24 years were recruited. The sample was divided into

restrained eaters (31 women and 8 men), and unrestrained eaters (29 women and

24 men). They were also racially and ethnically diverse. Participants were given a

cover story and a survey with both real and ‘fake’ questions on mood and hunger to

control the hunger variable in the experiment. Data on participants who guessed the

topic of study after the experiment were eliminated from the results. (2009, p.408)

The results showed that children consumed 45% more snack foods when

exposed to food advertising. Adults consumed more snack foods after exposure to

‘fun’ food advertisements as compared to ‘health and nutrition’ food advertisements

(2009, p.404). Both healthy and unhealthy snack foods were consumed in a greater

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amount. Restrained eaters also ate more than unrestrained eaters (2009, p.409).

This supports the original hypotheses presented by the authors.

Some limitations mentioned include the multitude of advertising stimuli

surrounding the population in the real world. It was also mentioned that other

situational factors such as group eating couldn’t be simulated and most experiments

were conducted in isolation (2009, p.410). Another limitation of the experiment was

the inability to identify different types of advertisements and their effect on eating

behaviors (2009, p.411). As a result, further investigation is needed in the area.

Critique

Harris et al. stated the hypothesis that “exposure to food advertising during

TV viewing may contribute to obesity by triggering an automatic snacking of food

available” (2009, p.404). The second hypothesis states that “food advertising that

conveys snacking and fun will automatically cue eating behavior amongst adults as

well as children.” (2009, p.405) The third hypothesis states that snack advertising

has “a more pronounced effect on restrained eaters” (2009, p.408). There were

many hypotheses stated, which may have made the experiment less focused, as

many different versions of the experiment had to be conducted (e.g., one with

children and one with adults). Although the hypotheses were well justified and the

design of the research experiment was appropriate, it was not in-depth enough in

terms of researching the specific type of population (i.e., children).

The main variables measured were not very specific at the beginning of the

paper, as the measurement unit for the “amount of snack food” was not clearly

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stated. Furthermore, there were many types of snack foods consumed during the

experiment, which were all of different weights. Many external variables were

considered such as hunger. The second experiment was conducted between 3:00

p.m. and 6:00 p.m. so as to minimize the “initial differences in hunger”, and a PANAS

assessment was conducted before the experiment to determine the participant’s

hunger. (2009, p.408) The results indicate that there was no significant relationship

between hunger and the amount consumed (2009, p.410). However, many issues

such as differences in individual participant’s perception of hunger as well as

pressure to complete the survey could have affected these results. In the first

experiment, results showed that parents’ assessment of how much their children

liked goldfish crackers was the only control characteristic that predicted the amount

of goldfish crackers consumed (2009, p.407). This could have skewed results if more

children who liked goldfish crackers were present in the group that watched snack

food advertising. Furthermore the experiment did not test for the consumption of

other types of snack foods, which may have brought about different results.

In the first experiment, the authors made sure to repeat experiment 1a with a

group of children from a more ethnically and socioeconomically diverse school

district (2009, p.406). Because a payment incentive of a $20 gift card was presented

(2009, p.406), it might have affected the representativeness of the sample as only

part of the population interested in the gift reward participated in the experiment.

Furthermore a methodology for defining a more ‘ethnically and socioeconomically

diverse school district’ was not given. Only two school districts were tested, leading

to a lack of generalizability of the results for the entire population of children in the

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United States. Furthermore, the scope was also limited to the study of 7 to 11 year

olds (2009, p.406), and therefore does not test for the effects of food advertising on

very young to toddler-age children as well as teenagers. The second experiment was

only conducted on university students aged between 18 and 24 years old (2009, p.

408), which limits the representativeness of the sample greatly. Eating behaviors

may be determined largely by the group’s lifestyle as university students rather

than the physical “hedonic” systems of the adult population. Furthermore, the study

tests for the consumption habits of young adults rather than older adults above the

age of 24. The study done on restrained eaters also included 31 women and only 8

men (2009, p.408), which could have led to unrepresentative results of the ‘dieting’

population.

Overall, results were well presented with figures. Harris et al. stated that

children who saw the cartoon with food advertising ate 45% more (or about 28.9

grams of) goldfish crackers than the control group (2009, p.407). The results for

experiment 2 were analyzed for z scores rather than percentages and significance in

differences were considered for all 3 groups (snack ads, nutrition ads and the

control group). Hunger was identified as a covariate but results of participants who

were hungry immediately prior to eating (2009, p.410) were not excluded from the

experiment, which could have affected results.

The authors identified the lack of ability to imitate normal TV viewing

conditions, particularly with group eating (2009, p.410). They also noted that

advertising does not just exist in Television programming, but in a wide variety of

situations in real life (2009, p.410). Furthermore, specific types of “advertising

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features” (2009, p. 411) were not identified and investigated on, which leads to a

need for further investigation. Harris et al. also stated that the experiments provide

evidence for a direct causal link between food advertising and snack consumption

(2009, p.410), which might be a lack of acknowledgement for correlation rather

than causation.

Personal reaction

The study conducted was very thorough and detailed. It also lies within my

personal interest of the effects of advertising on psychology, as well as a general

interest in how to improve one’s dietary habits. The results were generally expected

in terms of an increased consumption level given exposure to food advertisements.

However, it was unexpected that the results were consistent amongst both

experiments with children and adults. The ineffectiveness of nutrition ads compared

to ads that emphasized excitement on increasing consumption levels was also

unexpected. This spurs further curiosity into the difficulty of encouraging healthy

eating habits in adults, especially through using imagery and media. Further studies

on the best way to educate the public on healthy eating can be done and will be very

applicable to marketing decisions made by companies. It was particularly surprising

to me how complex the research experiment designs were. Before reading this

literature, I had a more simplistic and straightforward view on how psychology

experiments were designed, formatted and presented. After reading the article, I

gained a better understanding of how to plan for a research experiment in order to

broaden the possibilities of findings.

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References

Gorn, G. J. & Goldberg, M. E. (1982). Behavioral evidence of the effects of televised

food messages on children. Journal of Consumer research, 9, 200-205.

Harris, J., Bargh, J., & Brownell, K. (2009). Priming effects of television food

advertising on eating behavior. Health Psychology, 28(4), 404-413.

doi:10.1037/A0014399

Institute of Medicine (2008). National Academy of Sciences, Committee on Food

Marketing and the Diets of Children and Youth. Food Marketing the Children and

Youth: Threat or Opportunity? J.M. Mcginnis, J. Gootman, & V. L. Kraak.

Washington, DC: National Academies Press.

Lowe, M. R., & Butryn, M. L. (2007). Hedonic hunger: A new dimension of appetite.

Physiology and Behavior, 91, 432-439.

Wansink, B. (2006). Mindless eating: Why we eat more than we think. New York:

Bantam Books.

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