Publication Type
Journal Article
Version
publishedVersion
Publication Date
4-2015
Abstract
We report the results of three high-powered replications of Troisi and Gabriel's (2011) idea that writing about comfort food reduces feelings of loneliness amongst securely attached individuals after a belongingness threat. We conducted our studies amongst a large group of participants (Total N = 649) amongst American (MTurk), Dutch (Tilburg University; TiU), and Singaporean (Singapore Management University; SMU) samples. Participants first completed an attachment style scale, followed by writing two essays for manipulating a sense of belongingness and salience of comfort food, and then reporting their loneliness levels. We did not confirm the overall effect over all three countries. However, exploratory results provide the preliminary suggestion that (1) the comfort food explanation likely holds amongst the American samples (including Troisi and Gabriel's), but not amongst the TiU and SMU samples, and potentially that (2) the TiU and SMU participants self-regulate through warmer (vs. colder) temperature foods. Both of these should be regarded with great caution as these analyses were exploratory, and because the Ns for the different temperature foods were small. We suspect we have uncovered first cross-cultural differences in self-regulation through food, but further confirmatory work is required to understand the cultural significance of comfort food for self-regulation.
Keywords
replication, comfort food, loneliness, embodied cognition
Discipline
Psychology
Research Areas
Psychology
Publication
Frontiers in Psychology
Volume
6
First Page
1
Last Page
9
ISSN
1664-1078
Identifier
10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00314
Embargo Period
7-10-2015
Citation
ONG, Lay See, IJzerman, Hans, & LEUNG, Ka Yee Angela.(2015). Is comfort food really good for the soul? A Replication of Troisi and Gabriel's (2011) Study 2. Frontiers in Psychology, 6, 1-9.
Available at: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/1677
Copyright Owner and License
Authors
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Supplementary material
Additional URL
https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00314
Comments
The supplementary file contains the questionnaires and scales, consent form, and methodology used.