Biological Explanations of Eating Behaviour

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Eating behaviour Topic 1: Attitudes to Eating Behaviour What is an Attitude? Attitudes are judgements. Most develop through the “ABC” model: ‐ Affective Response: An emotional response that expresses a person’s preference for something. ‐ Behavioural Intention: An indicator of a person’s typical behavioural traits. ‐ Cognitive Response: The individual’s belief about the subjects. Most of our attitudes come from either: ‐ Direct Experience: The physical and psychological consequences of the object. ‐ Observational Learning: Our attitude depends on factors such as our familiarity with the object, parental and cultural influences. Social Cognition Theories of Eating Behaviour Social cognition models assume that a fixed set of thoughts cause a particular behaviour. The most common social cognition model used to predict eating behaviour is Ajznen (1985)’s “theory of planned behaviour”: ‐ Attitude: A person’s judgements about the behaviour. ‐ Subjective Norms: A person’s belief about how the people they care about will view the behaviour. ‐ Behavioural Control: A person’s belief in their ability to perform the behaviour. ‐ Behavioural intention: A person’s intention to perform the behaviour. ‐ Actual Behaviour: The more favourable the attitude and subjective norm and the greater the level of behavioural control, the more likely it is that a person will perform the behaviour. Examples of studies which have used social cognition models to predict our eating behaviour include: ‐ Sparks et al (1992) (biscuits and wholemeal bread) ‐ Roats et al (1995) (semi skimmed milk) ‐ Sparks and Shepherd (1992) (organic vegetables) However, according to Sutton (1998), our intentions to perform a behaviour are not the best predictor of behaviour. Research has therefore been carried out to identify the most accurate cognitive predictors of our behaviour. There
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