Personality traits and food consumption: an overview of recent research

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cofs.2020.02.005Get rights and content

This paper summarizes research on relationships between personality and food choice and food consumption. Personality is one of many factors that can influence food choice and consumption and whether people make healthy choices. We used the Five Factor Model of personality as an organizing theme to summarize the research and found that in addition to personality, daily habits, the environments in which people live, and their cultural backgrounds influence how they eat, which in turn influences their quality of life or overall health, including the developing chronic disease.

Introduction

Food choice has been studied by food scientists and researchers in related fields for quite some time. This research clearly indicates that understanding what people eat and drink and why they eat and drink, what they do, requires understanding a variety of factors that can act together or individually [1]. One of these influences is personality (Figure 1), and the present paper reviews recent research on relationships between personality and food choice.

Section snippets

What is personality?

Although various models exist, most conceptualizations of personality define personality in terms of traits. Following the classic definition of Allport [2], traits are defined as predispositions to respond in a certain way across time and situations, for example, being outgoing, conscientious, anxious, and so forth. Traits are sources of motivation, influence perception, and are manifested in behavior. See Funder [3] for a more detailed discussion of the concept of traits.

The Five Factor Model

Food choice

An important focus of research on food choice has been the extent to which people choose to eat healthy foods. Although the phrase ‘healthy foods’ has no specific scientific definition, when using the term, many food scientists emphasize fresh fruits and vegetables. In a recent review, Fagan [9••] concluded that Openness and Conscientiousness were positively related to peoples’ tendencies to eat healthy foods. Fagan [9••] concluded that the positive relationship between eating healthy foods and

Preference for new, novel, and unfamiliar foods

Preference for new or novel foods has been the subject of a considerable body of research, much of which has examined what is called ‘food neophobia’. Despite this attention, there is little research on relationships between food neophobia and personality. Knaapila et al. [13] found that food neophobia was negatively related to Openness and Extraversion. Nezlek and Forestell [14] replicated these relationships, but they also found that a separate measure of what they called an approach motive

Vegetarianism and carnism

When considering the personality correlates of following a vegetarian diet, it is essential to take into account the availability of meat. If meat is not an option for people (e.g., it is too expensive or simply not available), it makes no sense to examine relationships between vegetarianism and personality. Therefore, research on the personality correlates of vegetarianism has been done among what are called ‘vegetarians of choice’ and not among ‘vegetarians of necessity’ [15]. Vegetarians of

Preference for spicy foods

Although the ‘personality of the lover of spicy foods’ receives attention in the popular media, the research on this topic is quite sparse. Most popular accounts, even those from the past 2–3 years, cite a 1980 study by Rozin and Schiller [22] that found that preference for spicy foods (defined as hot chilies) was positively related to sensation-seeking. Nevertheless, this finding was replicated by Byrnes and Hayes [23] and Wang et al. [24]. A recent study by Spinelli et al. [25] found that

Product labeling

Preferences for Genetically Modified food (GM or GMO) have received considerable attention. In a study of preference for labelling GM sugar and sugar in soft drinks, DeLong and Grebitus [26] found that the desire for GM labeling was positively related to Conscientiousness. No other traits were related to desire for GM labelling. In a three-country study (US, China, Italy) Lin et al. [27] found that Openness was positively related to acceptance for GM pork in all three countries, whereas

Obesity and body mass index (BMI)

Obesity is typically defined in terms of unhealthfully high BMI (body mass index), and studies of the two overlap. Given the health consequences of obesity, we focus on the personality correlates of obesity. Based on their meta-analysis of this research, Gerlach et al. [33••] concluded that, with only a few exceptions, obesity is positively related to Neuroticism and negatively related to Conscientiousness. Based on a similarly broad analysis, Jokela et al. [34••] concluded that obesity was

Eating disorders

Eating disorders can include numerous problems, and we will focus primarily on anorexia, bulimia, and orthorexia. Moreover, as disorders, these behaviors are a bit beyond the domains to which that the FFM was meant to apply. The FFM was designed to explain (primarily) individual differences among those who are not experiencing a disorder.

Body image dissatisfaction is one of the most important correlates of eating disorders. Although satisfaction with body image is not a personality trait per

Future directions

In terms of the focus of research on food choice and real-world problems, there appear to be two pressing issues: the growing number of obese people across the world and the need to develop sustainable systems of food production. Increasingly, people are eating too much of the wrong types of food, that is, food that is not good for them and the production of which is not good for the environment. Although understanding the relationships between food consumption and personality cannot provide

Conflict of interest

Authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

References and recommended reading

Papers of particular interest, published within the period of review, have been highlighted as:

  • • of special interest

  • •• of outstanding interest

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Michele C Machado-Oliveira: Conceptualization, Methodology, Formal analysis, Investigation, Data curation, Writing - original draft, Writing - review & editing. John B Nezlek: Methodology, Formal analysis, Writing - original draft, Writing - review & editing, Visualization. Heber Rodrigues: Conceptualization, Methodology, Formal analysis, Writing - original draft, Writing - review & editing, Visualization, Supervision. Anderson S Sant’Ana: Conceptualization, Resources, Visualization,

Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge the financial support of Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq, Grants #403865/2013-1, #302763/2014-7 and #305804/2017-0). This study was financed, in part, by the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - Brasil (CAPES) - Finance Code 001. John Nezlek’s work on this paper was supported by grant 2018/31/B/HS6/02822 from the Polish National Science Centre (Narodowe Centrum Nauki).

References (48)

  • Five Food Trends to Watch in 2019

    (2019)
  • S. Charlebois et al.

    Comparison of global food traceability regulations and requirements: global food traceability regulations…

    Compr Rev Food Sci Food Saf

    (2014)
  • G.W. Allport

    Traits revisited

    Am Psychol

    (1966)
  • D. Funder

    Global traits: a neo-Allportian approach to personality

    Psychol Sci

    (1991)
  • J. Rolland

    The cross-cultural generalizability of the five-factor model of personality

  • L.R. Goldberg

    The structure of phenotypic personality traits

    AmPsychol

    (1993)
  • D.J. Ozer et al.

    Personality and the prediction of consequential outcomes

    Ann Rev Psychol

    (2006)
  • W.S. Mischel

    Toward a cognitive social learning reconceptualization of personality

    Psychol Rev

    (1973)
  • P. Fagan

    The role of personality & psychology in healthy eating

    PsychCentral

    (2018)
  • M. Myrdal et al.

    Relationship between personality type and fruit and vegetable preference in third and fourth grade students

    J Childh Obes

    (2016)
  • T.S. Conner et al.

    The role of personality traits in young adult fruit and vegetable consumption

    Front Psychol

    (2017)
  • S.J. Weston et al.

    Personality traits predict dietary habits in middle-to-older adults

    Psychol Health Med

    (2019)
  • A. Knaapila et al.

    Food neophobia in young adults: genetic architecture and relation to personality, pleasantness and use frequency of foods, and body mass index—a twin study

    Behav Genet

    (2011)
  • J.B. Nezlek et al.

    Food neophobia and the five factor model of personality

    Food Qual Prefer

    (2019)
  • Cited by (11)

    • Who gives a veg? Relations between personality and Vegetarianism/Veganism

      2021, Appetite
      Citation Excerpt :

      It is possible that the previously observed associations between personality and veg*nism, which are modest and often inconsistent, can be brought into sharper focus by moving down the personality hierarchy to aspects or facets that provide greater fidelity or precision. Indeed, when describing any correlate of personality, it is important to ascertain the level of the trait hierarchy to which that correlate best applies (Machado-Oliveira, Nezlek, Rodrigues, & Sant’Ana, 2020; Mõttus, 2016). Thus, investigating both the Big Five traits and the narrower traits within this model may yield a more nuanced picture of the relations between personality and veg*nism.

    • Individual differences in functional food consumption: The role of time perspective and the Big Five personality traits

      2021, Appetite
      Citation Excerpt :

      Together, these structural individual differences in personality describe broad behavioral tendencies associated with future behavior and behavioral outcomes (Baumert et al., 2017). Personality traits constitute reliable predictors of dietary and health behavior patterns (Bogg & Roberts, 2004; Goldberg & Strycker, 2002; Machado-Oliveira et al., 2020; Stevenson, 2017) through traits of Conscientiousness and Neuroticism (Carrillo, Prado-Gascó, Fiszman, & Varela, 2012), self-control (Salmon, Fennis, de Ridder, Adriaanse, & De Vet, 2014), or hedonic tendencies (Hofmann, van Koningsbruggen, Stroebe, Ramanathan, & Aarts, 2010; Lowe & Butryn, 2007). Several studies have also investigated relations between personality traits and individual eating habits, dietary intake, and food choice (Lin, Ortega, Caputo, & Lusk, 2019).

    • Exploring Wellness Through Concept Analysis

      2024, Journal of School Nursing
    • The social psychology of eating

      2023, The Social Psychology of Eating
    View all citing articles on Scopus
    View full text