Lay American conceptions of nutrition: dose insensitivity, categorical thinking, contagion, and the monotonic mind.
Two studies explored Americans' tendency to simplify nutrition information. Substantial minorities of separate samples of college students, physical plant workers, and a national sample considered a variety of substances, including some essential nutrients (salt and fat), to be harmful at trace levels. Almost half the respondents believed that high-calorie foods in small amounts contain more calories than low-calorie foods in much larger amounts. Many subjects classified foods according to a good/bad dichotomy, and almost all subjects confounded nutritional completeness with long-term healthfulness of foods. To account for these results, we suggest the following heuristics and biases: dose insensitivity, categorical perception, a "monotonic mind" belief (if something is harmful at high levels then it is harmful at low levels), and the magical principle of contagion.
Rozin
P
P
Department of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia 19104-6196, USA. Rozin@psych.upenn.edu
Ashmore
M
M
Markwith
M
M
D000328:Adult; D001294:Attitude to Health; D004521:Educational Measurement; D002149:Energy Intake; D005260:Female; D005518:Food Preferences; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009751:Nutritional Requirements; D052756:Nutritional Sciences / Q000193:education; D009753:Nutritive Value; D012494:Sampling Studies; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014481:United States