Communications and Health: The Role of Impression Management Concerns and Food Associations on Food Choic

Although most meals are consumed in the presence of others, relatively little is known about how impression management influences food choice. Drawing upon the stereotype content model, the authors examine the proposition that consumers associate different types of food with traits that fall along the fundamental dimensions of warmth and competence, and choose the type of food to signal these important traits. Whereas unhealthy foods are associated with warmth-related attributes (e.g., nurture, comfort, family), healthy foods are associated with competence-related attributes (e.g., capability, intelligence, discipline). Thus, when placed in a social consumption context, consumers draw upon these associations to choose food strategically, with the intention of conveying personality traits to dining partners. Evidence from four experiments and a field survey support this proposition. When consumers are motivated to appear warm (competent), they are more likely to choose unhealthy (healthy) food. Importantly, consumer preferences can be shifted by manipulating ingrained food associations: consumers who are motivated to appear warm (competent) are more likely to choose healthy (unhealthy) food when it is coupled with warmth-related (competence-related) associations. These findings offer novel insights into why people might consume unhealthy foods and provide practical guidelines for designing interventions geared toward increasing healthy food consumption.