Many of the diseases which afflict people in an affluent society like the United States seem to be related to food consumption (e.g., adult-onset diabetes mellitus, hyperlipidemia, and colon cancer). In recent years, the health-related professions have become aware that their exclusive aim of disease treatment must be expanded to include health promotion. Professionals in food and nutrition, health education, social marketing, and psychology, as well as others have become interested in finding ways to promote healthy behaviors such as appropriate food consumption patterns. To modify food-related behavior, knowledge about why people eat what they eat is required. Both biological and sociocultural factors determine people's consumption behavior. This monograph, however, examines only the sociocultural determinants of individuals' food-related behaviors within their zone of biological indifference. The sociocultural variables are divided into two major categories - sociodemographic and psychological. Sociodemographic variables are often called external variables and include income, ethnicity, age, and the like. Psychosocial variables are thought to reflect the individual's internal state, and commonly examined variables include knowledge, beliefs, and attitudes.

Written by leading international experts, this book explores one of the central difficulties faced by nutritionists today; how to improve people's health by getting them to change their dietary behaviour. It provides an overview of the current understanding of consumer food choice by exploring models of food choice, the motivations of consumers, biological, learning and societal influences on food choice, and food choices across the lifespan. It concludes by examining the barriers to dietary change and how nutritionists can best impact upon dietary behaviour.

This title explores the psychological processes involved in the selection and consumption of foods and drink. The exposition is firmly linked to research evidence on the cognitive, socio-economic and physiological influences on the desire to eat and drink. The basic theory is that appetite is a learned response to a recognized complex of cues from foods, the body and the social and physical environment.; The volume starts with infant-care giver interactions in feeding, then moves on to consider how physical and social maturation in Western culture affects attitudes to foods, concentrating on the phenomena of ordinary dieting and the extremes of disordered eating. The concluding chapters deal with the process within the lives of individual consumers which causes the same eating habits to form in different segments of society. It also looks at food technology, marketing and governmental regulation.; "The Psychology of Nutrition" tackles questions about what goes on in eaters' and drinkers' minds about the foods and beverages they are consuming, and about the cultural meaning of the eating occasion in industrialized cultures.

* How can we understand food choice? * What factors influence dietary change and weight control? * How does stress influence eating? * In what ways are foods used to present ourselves to others? Food is central to the lives of all, and has for centuries been celebrated in art, poetry and song. More recently, media interest has focused public attention on the food we eat, and its influence on physical health and mental well-being. However, it is only in the past couple of decades that social scientists and social psychologists in particular have paid significant attention to the important topic of food. The Social Psychology of Food reviews this research from the perspective of social psychology. Key issues are addressed such as the role of various factors in food choice, the process of dietary change, the role of food in weight control and disorders of eating, stress and eating, food and self-presentation. Social psychological concepts are used as ways of explaining and understanding each of these domains of food research. The selective and in-depth coverage of the book is designed to demonstrate what social psychology has contibuted to the field, and to provide an essential text for students and researchers in psychology and trainee professionals in health.

First multi-year cumulation covers six years: 1965-70.

The year 2013 marks the 50th anniversary of the publication Erving Goffman's landmark work, Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity. Through this edited volume, we commemorate the continuing contribution of Goffman's work on stigma to social psychology. As Goffman originally used the term, stigma implies some sort of negative deviance, or in his words, ‘an undesired differentness from what we had anticipated.’ Since Goffman’s pioneering treatise, there have been thousands of articles published on different aspects of stigma. The accelerating volume of articles is testimony to the growing importance of stigma research, with almost three out of four of the stigma-related publications in the research literature appearing in the last 10 years. In this volume, a collection of up-and-coming and seasoned stigma researchers provide both theoretical insights and new empirical findings. The volume should be of interest to both established researchers and advanced students seeking to learn more about the depth and breadth of stigma research. This book was originally published as a special issue of Basic and Applied Social Psychology.