Popcorn And Habit Performance Review Paper

Neal et. al (2011) concentrated on the concept of habit performance. In general, the research question asks what and how can can habit performance be disrupted. In study 1, researchers conducted an experiment pertaining to habitual eating and popcorn in two different settings. In setting one, participants are given popcorn and asked to watch trailers in a cinema. In setting two, participants are given popcorn and directed to watch music videos in a meeting room setting. The hypothesis that can be pulled from this study is that popcorn eating in the cinema is not heavily impacted by freshness, staleness, or a strong habit. The environment plays a significant role in acting as a cue for triggering or not triggering habitual eating. Foundational background information can be traced back to Vartanian, Herman, and Wansink, (2008) where the basis of using food as a way of manipulating habits for the Neal et.

A unique contribution introduced in this study was perhaps the usage of music videos as an alternative to movie trailers. I find it unrealistic that people will ever just eat popcorn and watch music videos. The researchers created the experiment with the addition of certain observational study aspects. There were 98 participants with 57 being males in the cinema portion while 60 participants with 35 being male in the meeting room portion. Within these participants, they were sorted into groups of high, moderate, and low habit when it came to popcorn. Ultimately, their findings showed that those with high habit in the cinema ate almost the same amount of both stale and fresh popcorn. Those with moderate and low habit consumed more fresh popcorn and avoided stale popcorn due to their own motivation and desire to eat good popcorn over an automatic response. In the office setting, since there were less cues to activate the habit of habitually eating popcorn, participants across the board ate fresher popcorn