"او بیشتر از من دارد": مقایسه اجتماعی و زمینه های اجتماعی غذا خوردن

Abstract Eating is a social activity for most people. Other people influence what and how much an individual chooses and eats. Such social influence on eating has long been recognized and studied, but we contend here that one important social influence factor, social comparison, has been largely overlooked by researchers. We review the literature on comparing oneself to others on eating and weight-related dimensions, which appears to have an effect not only on eating per se, but also on self-image, body dissatisfaction, and emotions. Social comparison processes may well underlie many of the social influence findings discussed in this special issue.

Introduction Although much of the research investigating eating behavior examines the behavior of individuals eating alone in a lab, most actual eating outside of a laboratory setting involves people eating with other people, usually people whom they know (Rozin, 1996). Even when “meals” of only 50 calories (i.e., snacks) are included, most meals are eaten with at least one other person (de Castro, de Castro, 1989 and Redd, de Castro, 1992). A US survey reported that only one third of people reported eating alone during the week and even fewer claimed to eat alone on the weekends (Rodrigues & Almeida, 1996). Thus, human eating is generally a social activity. In fact, according to Sobal and Nelson (2003), “Eating alone is devalued and is not considered a ‘real’ meal for many people” and furthermore, “almost all people (who were surveyed) thought that an ideal meal should be eaten with the company of others” (p. 182). When Redd and de Castro (1992) asked people to eat their meals as they normally would with respect to eating companions, about two thirds of the meals were eaten with other people. Young adults report that they prefer to eat with others, although they do not always have time to do so (Larson, Nelson, Neumark-Sztainer, Story, & Hannan, 2009).

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