Social facilitation of eating: why we eat more when with friends

It is easy to realize that we usually eat more when we do it in the company of friends compared to when we are alone.

But what is the underlying phenomenon? With this article we will discover What is the social facilitation of food?, what is its explanation, in which circumstances it has more effect and in which, on the contrary, it is attenuated.

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What is the social facilitation of food?

The social facilitation of eating is the psychological phenomenon by which The fact of being accompanied by friends, family or acquaintances while we eat causes us to have a certain tendency to eat more food about what we would do if we found ourselves alone or in the company of strangers. According to this principle, while we are alone, we will eat light meals or, in any case, less copious meals than we would if we were surrounded by people from our circle.

Perhaps the reader is surprised and even against the hypothesis of the social facilitation of food, but we do not have more to remember and think about what (or how much) we had for dinner the last time we did it in the company of a group of friends, and compare with which we usually eat any given night with the only company of ourselves, at our home (in the event that we live alone).

In fact, the studies carried out in this regard have even managed to capture the difference in intake that occurs between the two situations in a figure. According to these conclusions, we would be eating 48% more than usual when we eat in the shelter of a group of friends. Several explanations have been given in this regard that try to find the logic behind the social facilitation of eating. We will explore some of them in the following points.

In 2019, the University of Birmingham's School of Psychology, led by Dr. Helen Ruddock, published a meta-study that collected data from 42 previous papers on the social facilitation of meal. This research was a great enrichment around this concept and has allowed us to know in greater depth what its characteristics are.

Evolutionary hypothesis: the equitable sharing of limited resources

A curious explanation of this phenomenon is evolutionary. According to this theory, the social facilitation of eating It would have its origin in the way of eating that the human being showed in the Paleolithic and Mesolithic times, that is, when societies were hunter-gatherers. In this context, food was scarce and several meals a day (sometimes not even one) were far from guaranteed.

Given such hostile conditions, getting food for the group became a social event for the whole tribe, and everyone ate together, as much as they could, since they did not know when. It would be the next time that they would have the opportunity to achieve a prey or collect enough fruits to allow them to nourish themselves again, sharing the experience in cluster.

It could be a social event or simply an intention to eat as much of the available food as possible before the others ate it. In addition, since we are talking about a situation in which said foods were extremely scarce and access to them, therefore, was very restricted. It is logical to think that, when faced with a source of nutrition, the individual would try to acquire the maximum quantity in the shortest possible time, since once it was exhausted, I would not know when I would find further.

Therefore, the evolutionary hypothesis would explain the social facilitation of eating as a behavior that would have somehow been imprinted in our unconscious behavioral tendencies and that it would take us back to a bygone era in which eating in a group was synonymous with trying to satiated to overcome the period of hunger that would follow and that we would not know how much could last.

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Eating in the company of strangers

However, it is not enough to be in a group, eating together with other human beings, for the social facilitation effect of eating to appear automatically. There is a detail that is key, and that is that These people must be close to us., since otherwise, the effect does not appear. In these cases, precisely the opposite phenomenon occurs, and that is that people tend not to eat much to convey a more positive image.

This may be because we try to show too impulsive an image, and in the culinary context we want to leave Of course, when we are in front of strangers, we are able to control ourselves and eat only what is necessary, without falling into excesses. Besides, This effect is especially observed in some groups, as shown by the studies carried out in this regard.

The first of them would be that of women who eat with unknown men, as opposed to the reverse case. The data shows that they worry more than they do about controlling their food intake. Although the explanation is not clear, one hypothesis suggests that what this behavior would seek would be unconscious approval from its hosts, due to its evident control over impulses.

The second case in which we can observe the phenomenon contrary to the social facilitation of food is in that of overweight people who eat accompanied by other individuals with whom they do not have a close relationship (which is the key to making this happen). As in the previous case, what research finds is that these people tend to to ingest significantly less food than when they are in the company of their older group nearby.

Therefore, what would be deduced is that there are some groups, such as women and people with obesity (and perhaps another that have not yet been considered in the studies carried out to date) where stereotypes, fear of being judged and other variables, would be having more weight when it comes to generating an attitude towards food than the social facilitation of the meal.

The problem of social facilitation of food today

However, what in ancient times could be a very efficient system to ensure that no member of the tribe went hungry when food was available, today it would be causing a problem new. And it is that the social facilitation of food could be very useful when food resources were limitedBut nowadays, where we can find all the food we want at any time, the situation is very different.

What we find today is a context in which leisure lunches and dinners in the company of family and friends are synonymous with celebration and usually with excess food. Meetings are frequent in which attendees, between laughs and conversations, do not stop eating starters, main courses, desserts and a large number of drinks, making up an amount of calories that is extremely higher than those necessary.

If it is an isolated event, it may not be a problem, beyond a more than sure heavy digestion (or a good hangover, if the excess has also gone through the alcoholic route). However, if these meetings become a regular thing throughout the week, it is most likely that we will begin to suffer the consequences in our body, being able to affect our body mass index, but also our metabolism or our cholesterol.

If we find ourselves immersed in this type of dynamic, it is best that we be aware of it and limit our intake to what our body needs, trying to cope with the impulse of the social facilitation of meal. Of course, this behavior can (and should) be accompanied by healthy physical exercise routines, even if they only consist of taking a walk every day as a habit.

What we must avoid at all costs is falling into a state of habitual sedentary lifestyle, because if we are used to attending meals and dinners with our friends, the social facilitation of food can thus establish a lethal combination for our health.

Behavior in other species

The study of social facilitation of eating has not been limited to humans. Some works have focused on observe feeding behaviors in species as diverse as rats or chickens, among other. This phenomenon has also been observed in them, and has given rise to different hypotheses about the function that it could be fulfilling in them.

Some researchers suggest that in these individuals, when eating in a group, an internal confrontation would be taking place. The reasoning would be that, on the one hand, they would tend to get as much food as possible, before the rest did the same. their own, but on the other hand they would try to contain themselves so as not to be "signaled" by their peers and therefore isolated from the cluster.

Bibliographic references:

• Acuña, L., GARCÍA, D.A.G., Bruner, C.A. (2011). The effect of the presence of a number of people in different social situations. Mexican Journal of Psychology.
• Bruner, C.A. (2010). Eating behavior: common variables through conditioning and motivation. Mexican journal of behavior analysis.
• Ruddock, H.K., Brunstrom, J.M., Vartanian, L.R., Higgs, S. (2019). A systematic review and meta-analysis of the social facilitation of eating. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.