Female identity threat and eating, 2015

Heart disease is the leading cause of death among men and unhealthy diets are a known contributing factor. UK policies such as front of pack labelling of food products and campaigns such as "Be food smart" are aimed to promote healthy eating practices. Data show that men benefit from these interventions less than women. One possible mechanism is that social norms about masculinity encourage men to eat meals rich in red meat and potatoes, and low on vegetables. We propose two Internet-based studies to test the hypothesis that in situations where men's masculinity is threatened, they will tend to choose foods that are perceived as more masculine, and that are also less healthy. In the first study, participants would rate food items (see The student diet 2014) on three scales: masculinity/femininity, healthiness/unhealthiness and palatability. In this, the second (experimental) study, male and female participants were randomly assigned to a gender identity threat or a gender identity affirmation condition (using the Conformity to Feminine Norms Inventory (CFNI), and then requested to choose between different food items. The prediction is that, following a masculinity threat, men would choose more masculine and less healthy foods, compared to the gender affirmation condition. We expect this effect not to occur among women. The snowball sample of 127 female respondents was conducted online via Qualtrics.

心脏病是男性死亡的首要原因，不健康的饮食是已知的促成因素。英国的政策（如食品包装正面标签制度）和宣传活动（如“明智饮食”运动）旨在推广健康的饮食习惯。数据显示，男性从这些干预措施中获益少于女性。一个可能的机制是，关于男性气质（masculinity）的社会规范促使男性食用富含红肉和土豆、蔬菜含量低的膳食。我们提出两项基于互联网的研究，以检验以下假设：当男性的男性气质受到威胁时，他们会倾向于选择被认为更具男性气质且更不健康的食物。第一项研究中，参与者将根据三个维度对食物进行评分（参见《2014年学生饮食》）：男性气质/女性气质、健康/不健康以及适口性。这里，第二项（实验性）研究中，男性和女性参与者被随机分配到性别认同威胁组或性别认同肯定组（使用女性规范一致性量表（Conformity to Feminine Norms Inventory, CFNI）），然后被要求在不同食物中进行选择。预测是，与性别肯定条件相比，在男性气质受到威胁后，男性会选择更具男性气质且更不健康的食物。我们预期这种效应不会在女性中出现。通过Qualtrics在线进行了127名女性受访者的滚雪球抽样。