I found an interesting, and controversial, article in the New York Times about the spead of obesity among friends. One of the explanations for the findings of this particular study is as follows:
"Dr. Nicholas A. Christakis, a physician and professor of medical sociology at Harvard Medical School and a principal investigator in the new study, said one explanation was that friends affected each others’ perception of fatness. When a close friend becomes obese, obesity may not look so bad."
I thought this idea was interesting, and since this is a cognitive psych course, I thought I'd bring up the topic within a psychological framework. Can you think of any explanations for this finding in terms of cognitive processes, mental schemes, protptypes, etc? I know this is a pretty far-out discussion, but I thought it might provide some interesting debate (and the opportunity for people to write some blogs).
Here is a link to the article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/26/health/26fat.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1185567477-np7nw98CwaXbLnF53K/N6A
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5 comments:
It seems more of a phenomenon to be answered by social psychology to me. There may be something to the idea that when people are around obese people, especially friends who they like and/or respect, their perception of an acceptable prototype body may be altered. It seems to me, however, that's it's likely a consequence of something similar to "misery loves company". When your friends are fat, you don't feel as pressured to be thin.
Friendships are essentially mutually supportive relationships and we tend to make friends with people who reinforce our beliefs and point of view. When your friend is fat, it's likely that he/she will not encourage you to exercise when he/she is not. No one wants to be obese, and certainly no one wants to be obese and surrounded by their healthier, more attractive friends. I know these thoughts have occurred to me in the past --when I hang out with a friend who is chubbier, I think "well, at least i'm not as fat as she is" and I don't feel particularly motivated to work out. But when I'm with a friend who is really in-shape and works out a lot I feel pressured to do the same. It's the same with lots of things --doing well in school, getting a boyfriend, etc. A lot of people "run faster with the faster horses." When placed in a more competitive pool, people have the tendency to perform better. So it's likely that if your best friend is fatter than you are, you going to shrug, look at your own (slightly better) body, and go "eh, good enough." If your friends are thin you'll feel pressure to match them or else you'll feel like the fattest kid on the block.
A possible cogitive explination for this could be the connectionist model of memory. For example, if you had an obese friend, you may associate the trait of obesity with positive memories of your friend. You would not have these positive memories if you didn't have an obese friend.
I agree with Janice, that it is probably more of a social psychological phenomenon than anything else. The authors (I heard the NPR report) seem to attribute it mostly to norms, social norms in this case, to why it's acceptable to become fat when your friends are fat. It also has hints of social acceptance, too. Remember how we talked in class about how you start talking like your friends partly because you want to be accepted by your friends? This could be something similar, that you want to be accepted by your friends and one way is to eat and look like them.
Aravind's point is also interesting because it implies that we have these sort of protective memories around our friends (and therefore ourselves). I definitely have a tendency to think all of my friends are gorgeous wonderful people and would really have to struggle to think of them as fat. I would keep making excuses for them and maybe that would also transfer onto myself.
Thats the problem with americas obesity problem. Everyone sees fat people so they think its ok to be fat. Only if people would exercise at least 30 minutes everyday
I think that both Janice and Arvind make excellent points, but like I-Chant, I tend to lean more in the direction of Janice’s view. In American culture there is tremendous pressure to be unrealistically thin. With the convenience, inexpensiveness and popularity of unhealthy foods such as McDonald’s and Jack-in-the-box, an already unrealistic expectation has become even harder to attain. It is my opinion that not only do people try to be more like their friends (and if their friends endorse unhealthy eating habits that lead to obesity, the individual will likely follow suit) but, as a saying I once heard a clinical psychology professor say: “like attracts like.” Therefore people with specific mentalities on food will be attracted to those with the same mentality, and people who may feel uncomfortable with their obesity, may feel more comfortable if they are around others of a similar body type. This is reflected by the research that many who marry, marry people of a similar level of attractiveness to themselves, although there are many exceptions.
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