The Role Of Learning Theories In Forming Food Preferences

Discuss the role of learning theories in the development of eating preferences

Learning theories help us understand actions and are important in one’s life in building personality and grooming. In my assignment I will be discussing each theory and elaborate each one of it with examples that will be relevant. The learning theories to be discussed are:

• Observational learning
• Operant conditioning
• Classical conditioning

Observation is one of those skills that humans possess in order to absorb their surroundings. We as humans have this trait by birth. Infants observe every detail of their surroundings and specially the people who are close to them, i.e. the parents and imitate what they see. It is thus said, a child’s conduct will reflect the ways of his parents.

The process of learning by watching others is called Observational learning (Shrestha, 2017). Our eating preferences also develop at a very young age, and observational learning plays an important part in it. For example, an infant sees his/her parents eating oats for breakfast each morning; chances are that as that kid grows with time he/she starts having oats for breakfast too. Though preferences may change with time due to observational learning. If we take teenagers as an example then their preferences will develop and shape according to what is trending in their surrounding. This leads to individual preferences.

Operant conditioning is a method of learning that occurs through rewards and punishments for behavior. Through operant conditioning, an individual makes an association between a particular behavior and a consequence (Skinner, 1938). Positive and negative reinforcements are required in order to strengthen or diminish a behavior respectively. Positive reinforcements are those, which are implemented after the subject shows favorable results/behavior. Negative reinforcements on the other hand are those in which there is the removal of an unpleasant consequence of a behavior. Punishments are used to diminish a behavior; there are two types of punishments, namely negative and positive punishments. Below are some examples that explain the relation of operant conditioning to eating preferences:

1. Positive reinforcement: A child may start eating a less preferred food if he/she is given a chocolate after finishing it as a reward (considering the child likes chocolates).
2. Negative reinforcement: A person may consume considerable amount of milk to avoid hypocalcaemia (calcium deficiency disease).
3. Positive punishment: Punishing a child if he ends up leaving food in plate, over the time that child will start finishing his food completely to avoid punishments.
4. Negative punishments: Switching off the cartoons on TV, if the child makes a fuss while eating.

Classical conditioning is yet another type of conditioning which was first discovered by Pavlov, a Russian psychologist. It is basically the learning through association. John Watson claimed that all aspects of human psychology can be explained by classical conditioning. Simply put, a subject is basically introduced to an unconditioned stimulus that results in an unconditioned response; the unconditioned stimulus is then linked to a neutral stimulus that becomes a conditioned stimulus.

Over the passage of time, the subject will start to show conditioned response towards the neutral-stimulus-turned-conditioned-stimulus. This can be explained by examples. For example, a girl’s mother calls her name every evening at 5:00 pm to wake her up, the girl will start to associate her mother calling her name (neutral stimulus) with 5:00 pm (unconditioned response). Now if the girl’s name is called by her mother even if it’s not 5:00 pm, she will wake up thinking that its 5:00 in the evening (conditioned response).

Use examples from your own life to explain how these theories may have influenced your preferences since childhood

Being a very curious child I was always curious of how our actions are related to our surroundings and studying psychology has answered many of my questions. Looking back to the time when I was a kid I see these theories playing a very important yet major role in my upbringing. Toddlers see and imitate what they see. I used to see my parents drink green tea every night after dinner, as I grew up I started to have it and we as a family practice this till date. Taste preferences also develop through observational learning and one ends up preferring those foods that are available in his vicinity.

A year ago I had gained a lot of weight and I was on the verge of getting obese. I had started having issues related to health and when I went for a doctor and did some research on what I was going through I found out that it was all because of carbonated drinks, junk food, fast food and clearly an unhealthy diet. This is where classical conditioning played its part. I left junk food and I started to eat healthy in order to avoid health risks. I started associating fast food and unhealthy things with health risks and thus I lost the urge to have those things in my diet. Operant conditioning also played its part. I started to workout in order to avoid the accumulation of fats that leads to obesity. This was an example of negative reinforcement.

Apart from that, there have been many instances in my childhood that revolve around negative punishment. I loved to play outdoor games as a kid and if ever I was fussy with finishing my food, my mother used to stop me from going outside and to avoid that I refrained from being fussy, even if the food was least preferred. There are many more examples from my childhood that relate well with these three theories.

Discuss the peer reviewed journal article on culture’s impact on food preferences

The research paper is by Kausar Naheed and Ijaz Hussain from Gomal University, D.I Khan. They have worked on previous researches and have given the credits rightly. The work has been divided into two sections. They have been summarized as expenditure on food items in rupees and the percentage consumed by each one of the four provinces. The statistics have been derived by a method that is called AE (adult equivalency).

This technique has been used to derive statistics by calculating the monthly consumption as well as the distribution of 13 food items. The food items considered in this article are ghee, jams, cereals, pulses, fruits, meat, vegetables, milk etc. it is shown that Punjab spends most on milk as compared to other provinces. Likewise, cereals are preferred by other provinces more than they are welcomed in Punjab. Jams are least preferred and least is spent on them. Observational learning plays a part in this kind of a pattern as there are certain values that are passed on from one generation to the other and this is how culture affects the food preferences in an area.

Shed light on the role and influence of Pakistani culture on one’s eating preferences

Pakistani culture has so much diversity in its food. Every town, city, province has its own specialty and is well known for it. It depends not only on the climate of that area but also the culture it has been following for decades. Lahore for instance is well known for its spicy foods, enriched in salts and different kinds of spices. Some of the famous dishes are nihaari, kunna, qourma etc. Natives of Lahore automatically develop taste for these foods. Likewise northern areas are famous for their use of dried meat and fats. Some areas in Karachi have surplus supplies of sea food whereas others have it in market seasonally. Members of the same family may have different food preferences. It may happen that one member likes spicy foods whereas other prefers less spices in their foods. It is clear that observation and culture play a major part in food preferences.