TEMPLATE DESIGN © Can Comfort Food Soothe the Rejected Soul? Effects of comfort food for social and physical distress Heather Scherschel, Traci Mann, & Marti Gonzalez Department of Psychology, University of Minnesota Introduction Is Comfort Food Comforting? A comfort food elicits a sense of well-being (Wansink, Cheney, & Chan, 2003) Mixed evidence Comfort food was no more effective at improving an overall negative mood than an equally liked non-comfort food, a neutral food, or nothing (Wagner et al., 2014) Comfort food might diminish the emotional pain associated with loneliness (Troisi & Gabriel, 2011) Relationship between social and physical pain The evolutionarily newer social attachment system may have co- opted the older physical pain system (Eisenberger & Lieberman, 2004) Individuals’ social or physical pain can be worsened or reduced by similar processes Receiving social support from a partner reduced physical pain (Master et al., 2009) Taking acetaminophen for three weeks led to decreased levels of hurt feelings (DeWall et al., 2010) Study 1Study 2 Discussion and Future Direction Purpose & Hypotheses Purpose Investigate the effectiveness of comfort food as a method for preventing or diminishing pain when individuals are socially excluded or experience physical pain. Hypotheses : 1. Studies 1 & 2: Participants who consume or receive a comfort food before the task will report less pain directly after the task compared to participants who eat nothing and receive nothing before the task 2. Studies 1 & 2: Participants who consume comfort food before the task will report less pain than those who received a gift 3. Study 1 only: Participants who consume a comfort food after the social pain task will report less pain by the end of the study compared to participants who eat nothing after the task Consuming comfort food after a social pain task leads to less social pain compared to receiving a gift or eating nothing Unexpectedly, those who received food as a gift before the task experienced less pain than those who ate their comfort food before the task Hypotheses for Study 2 were not supported Limitations: Although Cyberball is an effective social pain task, social distress in a lab setting may be different from social pain experienced in everyday life Future Directions Determine why receiving a gift may lead to less pain immediately following a social pain experience Investigate why hypotheses were unsupported in study 2 Pre-lab Online Survey (Studies 1 & 2) Comfort food preferences: Participants chosen for the lab study if they selected chocolate bars or potato chips as a comfort food Method Pressure Task (Berstein & Claypool, 2012; DeWall & Baumeister, 2006) RAs used the Wagner FPX algometer to measure: Pain threshold—initial point an individual feels pain Pain tolerance—maximum level of pain an individual can withstand RAs applied a steady pressure at a rate of 5 kilopascal (kPa) per second perpendicularly to participants’ non-dominant hand behind the first knuckle of the index finger Pain threshold and pain tolerance measures were counterbalanced with a 90-second interval between the two Mood Measure: PANAS Physical Pain Measure: pain slide, on a scale from 1-10 Results Two-way repeated measures ANCOVA with 1 between-subjects factor (3 levels of food condition) and 1 within-subjects factor (3 time points) was conducted on physical pain scores, with Time 1 physical pain as the covariate Planned contrasts for physical pain revealed that Group 2 experienced significantly greater pain at Time 4 compared to Group 3, t(142) = 2.025, p =.022 (H1) Method Social Pain Task: Cyberball (Williams & Jarvis, 2006) Participants used a mouse to toss a ball with two other supposed students, who are actually the computer program Participants were included in the ball-toss game for the first minute and then excluded for the following two minutes (procedure adapted from Eisenberger et al., 2006) Mood Measure: PANAS Social Pain Measure: pain slide, on a scale from 1-10 Results Two-way repeated measures ANCOVA with 1 between-subjects factor (5 levels of food condition) and 1 within-subjects factor (3 time points) was conducted on social pain scores, with Time 1 social pain as the covariate Planned contrasts for social pain revealed that Group 1 reported significantly less social pain at Time 3 compared to groups 3, 4, and 5, t(244) = 4.55, p <.0001 (H1) Group 2 reported significantly less social pain at Time 3 compared to group 1, t(244) = 3.53, p =.0003 (H2) Group 3 reported significantly less social pain at Time 4 compared to (H3) Group 1, t(244) = 4.69, p <.0001 Group 4, t(244) = , p =.0012 Group 5, t(244) = -3.83, p <.0001