Testing the vicarious licensing effect in healthy eating: results of two randomised experiments
2015
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.
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