The effect of crowd noise on consumption amount

Research on factors influencing eating behaviours has been abundant. This study examines how social-contextual influences, specifically ambient factors such as crowd noise, would influence consumption amount. As crowdedness is associated with lowered self-control (Fujita, Trope, Liberman, & Levi...

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Main Author: Ong, Xue Yin
Other Authors: Bobby K. Cheon
Format: Final Year Project
Language:English
Published: 2016
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Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/10356/66558
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Institution: Nanyang Technological University
Language: English
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spelling sg-ntu-dr.10356-665582019-12-10T14:12:41Z The effect of crowd noise on consumption amount Ong, Xue Yin Bobby K. Cheon School of Humanities and Social Sciences DRNTU::Humanities Research on factors influencing eating behaviours has been abundant. This study examines how social-contextual influences, specifically ambient factors such as crowd noise, would influence consumption amount. As crowdedness is associated with lowered self-control (Fujita, Trope, Liberman, & Levin-Sagi, 2006) and stress (Nicosia, Hyman, Karlin, Epstein, & Aiello, 1979), it is possible that crowd noise would likewise produce higher food intake due to inability to rationally regulate how much one eats (e.g., due to lowered self-control, or emotional eating) when perception of crowdedness is aroused. Thus, it is hypothesised that perceptions of crowdedness would lead to greater consumption of a generally palatable, but unhealthy snack food (Hypothesis 1). Additionally, this effect is hypothesised to be due to heightened anxiety level (Hypothesis 2) and a lower construal level (Hypothesis 3), as associated with perceived crowdedness. Hypothesis 1 was supported whereby the Crowd condition ate the largest amount of chips, followed by the Rain audio condition and then the no-audio control condition. However, the predictions of hypotheses 2 and 3 were unsupported by our data although the general direction of their results aligned with the predictions. These findings suggest that the manipulation of crowdedness simply through auditory channels is sufficient to influence eating behaviours, such that a perception of crowdedness would unknowingly affect an individual to eat more of an unhealthy snack food. Future research should further investigate if perceptions of crowdedness would likewise affect eating rate/speed and also if the findings of this study can be replicated in an actual crowded environment. Bachelor of Arts 2016-04-16T02:02:43Z 2016-04-16T02:02:43Z 2016 Final Year Project (FYP) http://hdl.handle.net/10356/66558 en Nanyang Technological University 52 p. application/pdf
institution Nanyang Technological University
building NTU Library
country Singapore
collection DR-NTU
language English
topic DRNTU::Humanities
spellingShingle DRNTU::Humanities
Ong, Xue Yin
The effect of crowd noise on consumption amount
description Research on factors influencing eating behaviours has been abundant. This study examines how social-contextual influences, specifically ambient factors such as crowd noise, would influence consumption amount. As crowdedness is associated with lowered self-control (Fujita, Trope, Liberman, & Levin-Sagi, 2006) and stress (Nicosia, Hyman, Karlin, Epstein, & Aiello, 1979), it is possible that crowd noise would likewise produce higher food intake due to inability to rationally regulate how much one eats (e.g., due to lowered self-control, or emotional eating) when perception of crowdedness is aroused. Thus, it is hypothesised that perceptions of crowdedness would lead to greater consumption of a generally palatable, but unhealthy snack food (Hypothesis 1). Additionally, this effect is hypothesised to be due to heightened anxiety level (Hypothesis 2) and a lower construal level (Hypothesis 3), as associated with perceived crowdedness. Hypothesis 1 was supported whereby the Crowd condition ate the largest amount of chips, followed by the Rain audio condition and then the no-audio control condition. However, the predictions of hypotheses 2 and 3 were unsupported by our data although the general direction of their results aligned with the predictions. These findings suggest that the manipulation of crowdedness simply through auditory channels is sufficient to influence eating behaviours, such that a perception of crowdedness would unknowingly affect an individual to eat more of an unhealthy snack food. Future research should further investigate if perceptions of crowdedness would likewise affect eating rate/speed and also if the findings of this study can be replicated in an actual crowded environment.
author2 Bobby K. Cheon
author_facet Bobby K. Cheon
Ong, Xue Yin
format Final Year Project
author Ong, Xue Yin
author_sort Ong, Xue Yin
title The effect of crowd noise on consumption amount
title_short The effect of crowd noise on consumption amount
title_full The effect of crowd noise on consumption amount
title_fullStr The effect of crowd noise on consumption amount
title_full_unstemmed The effect of crowd noise on consumption amount
title_sort effect of crowd noise on consumption amount
publishDate 2016
url http://hdl.handle.net/10356/66558
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