Construction and validation of the food attitude scale.

Abstract

A scale designed to measure a personality dimension involving attitudes toward food was constructed by means of internal-consistency item-analysis procedures. A pool of 221 true-false items was administered to 400 undergraduates. The analysis yielded 62 cross-validated items scored for males, 65 for females. With new samples, split-half reliability was found to be .73 for males, .74 for females. Test-retest reliability (6 weeks) was .86 for males, .82 for females. In a validational study with 204 undergraduates, scores on the food scale were found to be positively correlated with self-ratings of viscerotonia and negatively correlated with cerebrotonia, as hypothesized.Investigations of individual differences in affective responses to food or food-related cues have been confined primarily to aversive reactions. Typically, a list of various foods is presented, and subjects are asked to indicate those items which they dislike, those which they would refuse to eat, etc. With aversion to food conceptualized as a personality variable, it has been found that the number of foods disliked is positively related to a number of relatively negative characteristics:

Body attention patterns and personality defenses.

“…The Byrne Food Attitude Scale (Byrne, Golightly, & Capaldi, 1963) was used to test the hypothesis that, BFQ Eyes would be negatively correlated with enjoyment of eating. This scale is composed of 221 items which inquire concerning liking for foods, pleasantness associated with past eating experiences, cooking skill of mother, and importance of food as a reward and comfort.…”

Sexually dimorphic extinction of a conditioned taste aversion in rats

“…Hoshishima (1967) reported that female mice have a lower tolerance for a bitter taste. Finally, it has been shown that female humans report more food aversions than males (Byrne, Golightly, This work was supported in part by National Science Foundation Grant GB-40314 to Robert C. Bolles Capaldi, 1963;Smith, Powell, & Ross, 1955a, b;Wallen, 1943).…”

Weight, sex, and the eating behavior of human newborns.

“…Sweetening increases the intake of fluids for males also, but to a much smaller degree. There is also some evidence which suggests that female humans are more taste responsive than male humans: It has been consistently reported that females have more food aversions than males (Byrne, Golightly, & Capaldi, 1963;Smith, Powell, & Ross, 1955a, 1955bWallen, 1943).…”