Family resemblance in attitudes to foods.

Abstract

University of PennsylvaniaAlthough it seems likely that family experience should be a major factor in theacquisition of food preferences and attitudes to foods, prior research has not justifiedassignment of a significant portion of variance to family influences. This studydiffers from its predecessors, in that it compares young adults (instead of youngchildren) with their parents and explores attitudes to food, especially sensitivity tocleanliness and contamination of foods (disgust), as well as food preferences.Questionnaires were answered by 34 university students (mean age = 19) and theirfamilies. Results indicate small positive parent-child correlations for food preferences(r = .1 to .3 for most items) and considerably larger correlations in the area ofdisgust or contamination sensitivity (r = .3 to .6 for most items). Children's pref-erences and attitudes are about equally related to those of their mother and father.Some small ethnic-group (half of the families were Jewish, half were Christian)effects were found in contamination sensitivity; these were minor in comparisonto the family effects.