How do you make undergraduates eat their vegetables? Trick them into believing they had a childhood love of the stuff. A team of researchers at U.C. Irvine studying implanted false memories asked 128 undergrads questions about how well they liked certain foods growing up. A week later, the students were called back and shown their results. But the researchers secretly changed the answers of one group of students to say that they loved asparagus the first time they tried it. When these students were later asked to order dishes on a hypothetical restaurant menu, those who had read falsified self-testimony about their childhood love of asparagus were significantly more likely to order it than they had been just a week earlier. No word on how effective this kind of memory implantation is outside the lab. Readers … a little help? (HT: Nudge) [%comments]
No, Really, You Loved Asparagus As A Kid
TAGS: food, psychology
and 
. You can also watch it on 
How far apart were the two incidents, and did the effect last after the one order? I am wondering whether the order is more common because people who saw the falsified result were confused by it, and were either thinking more about asparagus because of their confusion or ordering to test to see whether they actually liked it, since they appeared to have contradictory opinions on the subject.
I don’t think that is all that surprising. If I was told I loved asparagus as a kid (and believed it for some reason) I think I would be more tempted to try it one more time to see if I really do like it.
I distinctly remember loving brussel sprouts as a young child – the extent that it was one of the only vegetables I ate. As an adult, I find them moderately repulsive, yet I impulsively order them at restaurants for some reason. Perhaps they don’t make them like they used too, but I would suggest its more along the lines of this study.
But why did they order the asparagus? Because they thought they liked it, or because they were surprised by their answer, and wanted to try it again to see if they really liked it?
This would be rather more compelling if they had actually, say, eated asparagus and shown that they liked it, or would eat it again. As it stands the results are a long way from implying anything meaningful about the real world, except of course the ability to implant false memories, which is hardly news.
I think this works largely off of many people’s unfamiliarity with asparagus. It would probably also work with mesclin greens, artichokes, parsnips, or bok choy, but probably not with broccoli, green peppers, or spinach. Things people see or hear regularly aren’t going to be subject to that bias. But I’m totally going to lie to any kids I have about what they liked in the past if it has been long enough that they wouldn’t immediately remember. It is a much better plan than, like my parents did, keep pushing raw or steamed vegetables in such a way that was clearly unpalatable to kids.
I think the strategy has to be to go for seasonal vegetables whenever you can, make it presentable, and say “no, this was the vegetable we had last year that you liked.” But that’s all for kids.
I can confirm that this is quite the success story with our 4-year-old. Whenever he refuses to eat his broccoli, we remind him how he loved it as a tiny toddler. And he eats up.
So yeah, it applies to kindergarten kids as well.
There is a difference between a false memory and an incorrect response to a survey question.