How imagination influences consummation: the more you think about it, the less you eat

Lukáš Michele
Simona Liptáková
Alexandra Ocásková
Hana Hlobilová
Tereza Kašková
Agáta Přikrylová
Martin Vaculík
Jakub Procházka

Abstract

This study is a replication of an experiment that has supported a hypothesis that people imagining a consumption of food before its real consumption eat less food than without the prior imagination. The sample consisted of 77 university students who were randomly assigned into three groups varying by amount of imagined objects being consumed. A larger sample has been collected, the level of predictor variable manipulation has been controlled and a no compensation has been offered to the participants in comparison to the replicated study. On the contrary to the primary study, no significant effect of the type of imagined consumption on the consecutive consumption has been found. Results do not support results of the original study and suggest the original study’s outcome might have been achieved at random. More replication is necessary to be able to assess whether the effect of imagination on food consumption is real.

https://doi.org/10.29364/epsy.340

(Fulltext in Czech)

Keywords

imagination, consumption, habituation, replication

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