False beliefs about fattening foods can have healthy consequences

Abstract

We suggested to 228 subjects in two experiments that, as children, they had had negative experiences with a fattening food. An additional 107 subjects received no such suggestion and served as controls. In Experiment 1, a minority of subjects came to believe that they had felt ill after eating strawberry ice cream as children, and these subjects were more likely to indicate not wanting to eat strawberry ice cream now. In contrast, we were unable to obtain these effects when the critical item was a more commonly eaten treat (chocolate chip cookie). In Experiment 2, we replicated and extended the strawberry ice cream results. Two different ways of processing the false suggestion succeeded in planting the false belief and producing avoidance of the food. These findings show that it is possible to convince people that, as children, they experienced a negative event involving a fattening food and that this false belief results in avoidance of that food in adulthood. More broadly, these results indicate that we can, through suggestion, manipulate nutritional selection and possibly even improve health.false memory ͉ nutritional selection ͉ food preferences ͉ suggestion W hat if your first taste of a fattening food, like strawberry ice cream, had caused queasiness? Might you avoid strawberry ice cream now? Although we cannot change the past, we can change how people remember the past. The present work shows how changing memory also can change behavior.

Creating Memories for False Autobiographical Events in Childhood: A Systematic Review

“…Visual inspection in Table 3 of the mean increased belief ratings before and after false feedback indicates a very consistent advantage for this condition over the control condition. However, like in the imagination inflation studies, analyses of ‘Believers’ indicate that it was usually the minority of study participants who showed clear evidence of responding positively to the intervention (range 18%, in Bernstein et al, 2005a, Study 1, to 53%, in Laney, Morris, Bernstein, Wakefield, & Loftus, 2008, Study 2).…”

“…Typically ‘Believers’ reported an increase on the autobiographical belief scale that ranged from 1 to 2 points, remaining below the scale midpoint, for an event at a theme park (Berkowitz, Laney, Morris, Garry, & Loftus, 2008) to 3–5 points, increasing beyond the scale midpoint, for food‐related events (D. M. Bernstein et al, 2005a, 2005b; Laney et al, 2008; Laney et al, 2008; Scoboria, Mazzoni, Jarry, & Bernstein, 2012). In some cases, belief ratings recorded by ‘Believers’ after false feedback were as high as 6.48 on the 8‐point scale (Laney et al, 2008).…”

“…Of the studies identifying a subset of ‘Believers’, the proportion endorsing a ‘memory’ as opposed to a ‘belief’ fell between 0% and 20% in studies suggesting the participant had been ill after eating something (D. M. Bernstein et al, 2005a, 2005b) or had had a specific experience at a theme park (Berkowitz et al, 2008). This proportion reached 40% in a study suggesting being sick after drinking alcohol (Clifasefi et al, 2013) and 20–50% in studies involving like or dislike of asparagus (Laney et al, 2008; Laney et al, 2008).…”

“…‘Believers’ are typically defined as responding to the intervention with at least a 1 point increase in confidence and reporting some belief or memory for the target event, although they are not required to report high levels of autobiographical belief and/or a recollective experience (D. M. Bernstein, Laney, Morris, & Loftus, 2005a; D. M. Bernstein et al, 2005b). As the primary focus of this review is to document the effects of false feedback versus no false feedback on autobiographical belief and recollective experience, means reported in Table 3 refer to the entire subsample exposed to the various conditions.…”

“…Belief (confidence) and recollection ratings in listed studies are all on 1–8 point scales unless otherwise specified; where ranges are given, means and percentages vary according to condition; scales include the following: Life Events Inventory (LEI: Garry et al, 1996) with authors' modified events; Food History Inventory (FHI: Bernstein et al, 2005a); Autobiographical Beliefs and Memory Questionnaire (ABMQ: Scoboria et al, 2004); Food and Beverage History Questionnaire (FBHQ: Clifasefi et al, 2013). …”