Testing the vicarious licensing effect in healthy eating: results of two randomised experiments

Abstract

Background: Vicarious licensing perspective suggests that seeing fellow in-group members make progress towards a shared group goal may cause high identifiers to lower their personal efforts towards that goal. The applicability of vicarious licensing to healthy eating was tested in two experiments. Methods: Study 1 (n=87) included a manipulation of identity content: participants were shown images portraying Australians as a healthy or unhealthy nation. Choices from an online restaurant menu constituted the outcome variable. Study 2 (n=117) involved a similar manipulation in the context of female identity, using the amount of food eaten in a taste test as the outcome. Both studies included a measure of group identification. Results were analysed using multiple regression techniques. Findings: In both studies, healthiness of the presented social images interacted with participants’ group identification to predict eating behaviour. Consistent with vicarious licensing, high identifiers chose higher calorie food from an online menu and ate more food in a taste test when presented with images of their in-group members behaving healthily. Discussion: The results suggest that vicarious licensing may contribute to unhealthy eating.