Pleasure as a Substitute for Size: How Multisensory Imagery Can Make People Happier with Smaller Food Portions

Abstract

Research on overeating assumes that pleasure must be sacrificed for the sake of good health. Contrary to this view, the authors show that focusing on sensory pleasure can make people happier and willing to spend more for less food, a triple win for public health, consumers, and companies alike. In five experiments, the authors ask U.S. and French adults and children to imagine vividly the taste, smell, and texture of three hedonic foods before choosing a portion size of another hedonic food. Compared with a control condition, this “multisensory imagery” intervention led hungry and nondieting people to choose smaller food portions, and they anticipated greater eating enjoyment and were willing to pay more for them. This occurred because multisensory imagery prompted participants to evaluate portions on the basis of expected sensory pleasure, which peaks with smaller portions, rather than hunger. In contrast, health-based interventions led people to choose a smaller portion than the one they expected to enjoy most—a hedonic cost for them and an economic cost for food marketers.

The effect of mindful eating on subsequent intake of a high calorie snack

“…Future research should also seek to identify the mechanism underlying the effect of mindful 579 eating on subsequent consumption. Recent work by Cornil and Chandon (2016) suggests it may 580 work by prompting individuals to eat a smaller amount in order to maximise sensory pleasure (as 581 opposed to satiety) which research shows tends to peak with smaller portions. Alternative 582 explanations are that it works by weakening associations between conditioned stimuli (e.g., sight 583 and smell of food) and reinforcement (i.e.…”

Does immersion or detachment facilitate healthy eating? Comparing the effects of sensory imagery and mindful decentering on attitudes and behavior towards healthy and unhealthy food

“…This led Arch et al to suggest that focusing on the sensory properties of food increases the enjoyment of the eating experience, thereby leading individuals to feel that they need to eat less in order to feel satisfied. Cornil and Chandon (2016) showed that such effects hold even when participants are not explicitly instructed to eat the foods. In a series of studies, participants in the sensory condition were presented with three images of tempting, unhealthy desserts and asked to imagine eating them, with a particular focus on the sensory properties of the food.…”

“…Many people would like to reduce indulging in unhealthy foods, but find it difficult to do so. Previous research shows that individuals eat smaller portions of unhealthy hedonic food if they first imagine the sensory properties of tempting food (sensory imagery; Cornil & Chandon, 2016). Similarly, they show less preference for such food if they think about food in a detached way (decentering; Papies, Barsalou, & Custers, 2012;Papies, Pronk, Keesman, & Barsalou, 2015).…”

“…Regarding the meta-cognitive component of mindfulness that is related to focusing attention, some studies have examined how focusing on the sensory properties of certain food may affect the consumption of another food immediately afterwards (Arch et al, 2016, Experiment 3;Cornil & Chandon, 2016). In a training phase, Arch and colleagues gave participants who had fasted for 2 h prior to the study five raisins to eat and a word puzzle to complete, and asked them to perform both activities simultaneously.…”

“…ways, it would be useful to compare their outcomes in the same study against the same control condition, particularly as the control condition of Cornil and Chandon's (2016) sensory imagery studies did not feature food stimuli, whereas those of the decentering studies did.…”