Does social modeling increase infants’ willingness to accept unfamiliar foods?

Abstract

Despite a rich knowledge base about infants’ social learning and studies observing social referencing in other species in food contexts, we know surprisingly little about social learning about food among human infants. This gap in the literature is particularly surprising considering that feeding unfamiliar foods to infants is a very common experience as infants begin to eat solid foods. The present study examines whether parental social modeling influences infants’ willingness to accept unfamiliar foods. In two Zoom sessions, parents will be asked to feed unfamiliar foods to their 6‐ to 24‐month‐old infants (different unfamiliar foods in each session). In both sessions, infants’ food acceptance and rejection will be measured. In the first session, parents will be asked to do what they would typically do; spontaneous social modeling will be recorded. In the second session, parents will be instructed to model eating the unfamiliar food. We will examine associations between infants’ willingness to eat unfamiliar foods, parent social modeling, and extant parent and infant characteristics.

Judgments about appropriate foods for infants: Associations with parents’ own food preferences

“…Research on infant social learning highlights that attention to social partners, especially their communicative facial expressions, gestures, and vocalizations [e.g., ( 14 – 18 )], is important for learning, including in food contexts ( 19 – 21 ). Therefore, social modeling may provide an important mechanism for infants to learn what foods are safe, healthy, and culturally appropriate [see ( 22 )]. Social modeling is recommended to parents of toddlers and children ( 23 – 25 ), but may be limited in infancy if parents avoid eating foods they consider appropriate for infants [see ( 22 )].…”

“…Therefore, social modeling may provide an important mechanism for infants to learn what foods are safe, healthy, and culturally appropriate [see ( 22 )]. Social modeling is recommended to parents of toddlers and children ( 23 – 25 ), but may be limited in infancy if parents avoid eating foods they consider appropriate for infants [see ( 22 )]. Indeed, in an observational study of infant solid food feedings at 6, 9, and 12 months (which provided the food descriptions here), spontaneous social modeling was rare (DeJesus et al, in preparation).…”