People's intended serving behaviour at social vs. non-social meals.

The social facilitation of eating refers to people's tendency to eat more food when dining with others than when dining alone. Recent research suggests that social facilitation may be driven by people's tendency to make more food available even before social meals begin, a phenomenon referred to as social "precilitation." In order to uncover the mechanisms underlying social precilitation, it is helpful to first understand whether people consciously and deliberately make more food available for social meals.

People serve themselves larger portions before a social meal.

One of the most powerful influences on food intake yet identified is the presence of familiar others at an eating occasion: people eat much more when they eat with friends/family than when they eat alone. But why this is the case is unclear. Across two studies (Study 1: N = 98; Study 2: N = 120), we found that the mere anticipation of social interaction is all that is needed to promote the selection of larger meals, and that this occurs even when a person is alone when they make their decision.

What does it mean to overeat?

"Overeating" is a significant public health concern, but little is known about how lay people conceptualize overeating. This study explored participants' conceptions of overeating. Participants were 175 university students and 296 community members (56% women) who were asked to rate the extent to which several statements reflected the concept of "overeating" (1 = Does not capture the meaning at all; 7 = Captures the meaning perfectly).