People-Pleasing Through Eating: Sociotropy Predicts Greater Eating in Response to Perceived Social Pressure

Abstract

do people sometimes eat in order to keep others comfortable? when people outperform others, they may experience concern or distress if they believe that their performance poses an interpersonal threat (exline & lobel, 1999). two studies extend these outperformance ideas to eating situations among undergraduates. our main hypothesis focused on the role of sociotropy, which involves preoccupation with pleasing others and maintaining social harmony. Sociotropy was associated with eating more candy, but only when participants believed that a peer wanted them to eat (Study 1). under these conditions, sociotropy also predicted greater reports of trying to match the peer's eating and eating to make the peer feel comfortable (Study 1). Sociotropy also predicted more interpersonal concern and/or distress in these situations (Studies 1 and 2), which in turn predicted reports of giving in to social pressure by eating more (Study 2).

Personality, perceived appropriateness, and acknowledgement of social influences on food intake

“…Sociotropy is the only characteristic included in the present study that was associated with acknowledgement of social influences and that has also been associated with eating behavior in previous research (Exline et al, 2012). This may be because the design of Exline et al's study differs from typical modeling studies in that the researchers were primarily interested in how participants' food intake was influenced by whether or not they believed that the confederate wanted them to eat.…”

“…For example, Exline, Zell, Bratslavsky, Hamilton, and Swenson (2012) found that sociotropy, an excessive concern with pleasing others and maintaining social harmony, predicted how much participants ate, but only when they believed that the confederate wanted them to eat. Furthermore, Robinson et al (2011) and Robinson, Benwell, and Higgs (2013) found that modeling was stronger among individuals who were high in trait empathy and among individuals who were low in trait self-esteem, but only when the model was physically present.…”

Eating a meal is associated with elevations in agreeableness and reductions in dominance and submissiveness

“…The mimicry seen in those eating together has been attributed to the desire to please others, be socially accepted, and maintain social harmony [9,10]. This desire to maintain social harmony could explain our finding that having an interaction during a meal was associated with an increase in agreeableness.…”

Who Doesn't Want to be Envied? Personality Correlates of Emotional Responses to Outperformance Scenarios

“…For example, sociotropy has been shown to predict STTUC-related concerns and distress in response to outperforming a peer on a laboratory-based performance task (Juola- Exline, 1996) and in response to a hypothetical situation involving imagined outperformance of peers on an exam (Exline, Single, et al, 2004). More recently, sociotropy has been linked with STTUC-related concerns and distress in situations involving eating (Exline, Zell, Bratslavsky, Hamilton, & Swenson, 2012).…”

“…Outperformance could put high-sociotropy persons in a powerful social bind: Although they may want to win the approval of others through high achievement, they do not want to separate themselves from others or to pose a threat (see, e.g., Exline, Single, et al, 2004;Exline et al, 2012). Thus, it is easy to see how sociotropy could foster chronic or recurring emotional agitation in social comparison contexts, creating conflict by pressing people to pursue the ever-moving and sometimes unreachable targets of pleasing others and winning their approval.…”