Does “Yummy” Food Help You Grow and Avoid Illness? Children's and Adults' Understanding of the Effect of Psychobiological Labels on Growth and Illness

Abstract

Three studies examined children's understanding of the role of psychobiological labels such as tasty ("yummy") and not tasty ("yucky") foods on growth and illness. Studies 1 and 3 examined the role of tasty and not tasty foods on height, weight, and illness, respectively. Study 2 controlled for the possibility that participants were responding to the positive and negative valence of the terms "yummy" and "yucky" in Study 1. Results revealed that young children entertain psychobiological causes for growth but not for illness. These results suggest that young children selectively apply psychobiological causes to explain different biological processes.

Japanese children’s awareness of the effects of psychological taste experiences on biological processes

“…Developmental changes in judgments. Judgments were coded in three different ways to determine the frequency of ''good tasting,'' ''bad tasting,'' and ''same'' responses given by participants, similar to the procedure of Raman (2011). When participants chose the character who said that the food tasted good, 1 point was given for ''good tasting'' and when participants chose the character who said that the food tasted bad, 1 point was given for ''bad tasting.''…”

“…In Study 1, following the method of Raman (2011), participants were presented with two characters who consumed the same amount of the same food but had different taste experiences, and were asked which character would grow taller, gain more weight, and more easily catch a cold. In the study by Raman (2011), after making a judgment, participants chose the best reason from three alternative justifications: psychological (''yummy food will make you grow''), psychobiological (''yummy foods have more nutrients in them which make you grow tall''), and biological (''peas have a lot of nutrients in them and the nutrients will make you grow tall'') explanation options. However, none of these three choices appeared to be appropriate for formulating justifications.…”

“…The findings of Raman (2011) are important because they suggest that cross-mind-body assumptions are specific and do not generalize across all biological processes. Depending on the biological process, children may or may not assume the impacts of psychological factors.…”

“…One major limitation of previous studies is that they have primarily focused on illness (Notaro et al, 2001(Notaro et al, , 2002Raman, 2009;Raman & Gelman, 2008;Schulz et al, 2007;Toyama, 2010Toyama, , 2013 or more specifically, on foodborne illness (Fallon et al, 1984;Toyama, 1999). To address this point, Raman (2011) recently examined children's understanding of food intake and extended this area of research. In her study, American children and adults were presented with two characters who consumed the same amount of the same food but had different taste sensations (tasty vs. not tasty).…”

“…They seemed to easily assume the effect of psychological factors on growth, but not on illness. One objective of the present study is to examine whether Raman's (2011) results could be replicated in a different cultural background (i.e., with a Japanese sample).…”