Food choice mimicry on a large university campus.

ABSTRACT: Social influence is a strong determinant of food consumption, which in turn influences the environment and health. Purchasing mimicry, a phenomenon where a person copies another person's purchases, has been identified as the key governing mechanism. Although consistent observations have been made on the role of purchasing mimicry in driving similarities in food consumption, much less is known about the precise prevalence, the affected subpopulations, and the food types most strongly associated with mimicry effects. Here, we study social influence on food choice through carefully designed causal analyses, leveraging the sequential nature of shop queues on a large university campus. In particular, we consider a large number of adjacent purchases where a focal user immediately follows another

SUBMITTER: Gligoric K 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11645252 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature