Extending Expectancy Theory to Food Intake: Effect of a Simulated Fast-Food Restaurant on Highly and Minimally Processed Food Expectancies.

Unhealthy diets are widespread and linked to a number of detrimental clinical outcomes. The current preregistered experiment extended Expectancy Theory into the study of food intake; specifically, we tested whether a fast-food restaurant affects food expectancies, or the emotions one expects to feel while eating highly (e.g., pizza) and minimally (e.g., carrots) processed foods. Participants (N = 200, M age = 18.79) entered a simulated fast-food restaurant or a neutral space, completed questionnaires, and engaged in a 'bogus' taste test. The simulated fast-food restaurant increased positive highly-processed food expectancies (d = 0.29). Palatable eating coping motives scores did not moderate the effect; however, this clinically-relevant pattern of eating behavior was associated with greater positive highly-processed food expectancies. In addition, there was an indirect effect of the fast-food restaurant on ad libitum food intake through positive highly-processed food expectancies. Reducing positive highly-processed food expectancies may improve diet, which may broadly impact health.