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
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Whose sucker kids are these? My kids would be so onto this. Vegetables they actually *did* like last week they deny ever having anything to do with.
What is the significance of their buying asparagus? For example, I know I hated asparagus as a child with a passion, but now I love it.
Additionally, I think if I said I hated something as a child and someone told me I didn’t, I would be likely to try it just to attempt to remember if my memory of the food was correct or if my answer on the questionarre was correct.
Really though, what is the point of this study?
I hated asparagus as a child, but that just happened to be because of improper preparation, canned asparagus tastes like soggy cardboard, now fresh asparagus i’ll eat all day long. the even funnier part for me is my sister would invite me over for dinner and she would appologize for making asparagus (fresh baked in the oven with crushed/diced garlic & olive oil) and would ask me if i want something different, as to which I would reply not fresh is fine just don’t serve me canned asparagus, this conversation would happen anytime I would come over for three years, until fianlly her husband was tired of hearing the same interaction and said something, this also happened with her and I over what size shirt I wore for 4 years.
I agree with many of the previous posters. If someone told me that I said I once enjoyed something which I’m confident I never said I did, I might try it just to confirm that no, I don’t enjoy it. Of course, that won’t work if it’s something I’ve had recently, or something where there’s a specific medical reason why I don’t eat it. It also won’t necessarily work in a study like the one designed here–I’d probably be suspicious of why they were claiming I said I liked it when I have no recollection of telling them that a week ago, which would be different from someone I know telling me that they remember me liking it at some point in the past.
This sounds similar to the ‘Labeling Technique’, which involves assigning a trait or belief to a person and then making a request of that person that is consistent with that label.
It often works a treat with coaching clients; for example, just state in a conversational way something like “You’re a person who often overcomes adversity”. Let in sink in, then a few minutes later, ask them to take some action to deal with that difficult issue they want to address. Perfectly ethical so long as the coach truly does believe that inside that person is somebody who can deal with adversity.
It works because people like to act in a way that is consistent with their beliefs about themselves. In the example above you’re helping them to adopt a useful self-belief then asking them to act in a way that is consistent with that belief.
And I can confirm it works on 6 year olds with most vegetables and fruit except raw tomatoes. Haven’t thought of trying asparagus yet!
Nick http://www.nrengage.blogspot.com
Nick
Craig, those were my thoughts exactly. I’d love to see a follow-up a month or so down the road to see if the effect persisted. Then again, it’s possible people who had no prior experience with the vegetable would have discovered they liked it, and the results may skew a bit.
“Reinforced memory” is a huge problem in the legal environment…check out feature on CBS’s 60 minutes in the last 3 months…the notion is that most people when faced with the combined “helping context” from law enforcement AND the possibility of “helping” identify a criminal would rather id the wrong person than say they don’t see the guy in the lineup…result, innocent people who have been id’ed by a “witness”…add in the powerful emotion of nostalgia for “real” childhood memories/connections for most people and it is no wonder, these false positives are possible
Why not just find a vegetable that your kids actually DO like? Is that too obvious a solution to this problem? Tastes change as people mature; does brainwashing kids into eating asparagus now REALLY sound like good, responsible parenting to Anyone??? These scientists must be really bored, as the parents sound like fruitcakes to me. Also, this study completely overlooks the Ethics involved in manipulating and lying to children instead of Honesty and responsible parenting. What a concept.
TOTALLY happened to me with spinach! My late mother told me I liked it as a child so I dabbled and developed a love for it. Now that she’s past I eat it like crazy just to feel closer to her.