How Foods Ads Are Playing With Your Brain

How Foods Ads Are Playing With Your Brain

Love the way that ice cream looks at the beach? It has to do with your thinking.

According to the Society for Consumer Psychology, if you’re a holistic thinker, you may not be in complete control of your thoughts. At least when it comes to food, that is.

A study recently published online in the Journal of Consumer Psychology by researchers at Utah Valley University declared the findings. Researchers discovered that holistic thinkers salivate more than analytical thinkers when they see unhealthy food photographed in a certain context.

“Holistic thinkers are more likely to experience cravings for unhealthy food after seeing advertisements that show the product in the context of a situation,” researchers stated.

To complete the study, participants did some weird things. They placed cotton dental rolls in their mouths to measure salivary responses while they viewed different images.

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One image was of a chocolate bar in a movie theater. The other one was a candy bar set against a simple, plain solid gray background.

It was found that holistic thinkers salivated more than analytical thinkers when they saw the chocolate bar in the context of the movie theater, but there was no difference between the groups when the chocolate bar was shown on a grey background.

Why is this? Researchers say it’s simple. If you’re a holistic thinker, you feel that everything in the world is somehow interconnected.

In contrast, analytical thinkers feel the universe is made up of independent objects that aren’t connected, researchers say. So, when a holistic thinker sees a picture of a bag of popcorn in a movie theater, they are more likely to crave it than analytical thinkers. They’re more influenced by context.

Trying to loose weight? Researchers suggest that holistic thinkers consider avoiding television commercials or magazines that are rife with advertisements, in order to limit their cravings.

Sometimes this is easier said than done…but maybe something to try.

Photo credits: aurielaki/Bigstock.com

 

 

 

 

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