Rewarding behavior with a sweet food strengthens its valuation

authored by

Jan M. Bauer, Marina Schröder, Martina Vecchi, Tina Bake, Suzanne L. Dickson, Michèle Belot

Abstract

Sweet foods are commonly used as rewards for desirable behavior, specifically among children. This study examines whether such practice may contribute to reinforce the valuation of these foods. Two experiments were conducted, one with children, the other with rats. The first study, conducted with first graders (n = 214), shows that children who receive a food reward for performing a cognitive task subsequently value the food more compared to a control group who received the same food without performing any task. The second study, conducted on rats (n = 64), shows that rewarding with food also translates into higher calorie intake over a 24-hour period. These results suggest that the common practice of rewarding children with calorie-dense sweet foods is a plausible contributing factor to obesity and might therefore be ill advised.

Organisation(s)

Faculty of Economics and Management

External Organisation(s)

Copenhagen Business School (CBS)
Pennsylvania State University
University of Gothenburg
Cornell University

Type

Article

Journal

PLOS ONE

Volume

16

No. of pages

11

ISSN

1932-6203

Publication date

14.04.2021

Publication status

Published

Peer reviewed

Yes

ASJC Scopus subject areas

General

Sustainable Development Goals

SDG 3 - Good Health and Well-being

Electronic version(s)

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0242461 (Access: Open)
https://doi.org/10.15488/12360 (Access: Open)