In psychology, we have recently discussed the learning of eating habits. Specifically, we have discussed the idea of contingencies and the importance of them relating to the ways in which reinforcement can heavily influence the foods we like and dislike. A contingency can be described with the use of the quote: “if you do this, you get that…”. You usually hear a parent saying this to a child, trying to compromise their meal in order to satisfy the child’s temperament while also getting the right nutrients out of food that is usually “unliked” (vegetables, etc.). However, the theory coming from Birch states that eating something you do not like in order to get “nice” food decreases the acceptance of the unliked food while increasing the desire of the liked food.

As we discussed the ideas of contingencies and reinforcement in class, I was able to experience it first-hand. The weekend before that psychology class, I tagged along with my roommate as she went home for fall break. Her family members are very big New England Patriots’ fans and the hype of the Patriots versus Cowboys game carried over all weekend long. The day of game day, Her family and I tailgated at her older brother’s house. The party consisted of me, my roommate, her mother, her father, her brother, her sister-in-law, her niece, her nephew, her aunt, and her friend from home. It was interesting to see what brings her family together compared to my family and what brings us together, which will never be a New England Patriots football game. But even if we did, we would celebrate the family gathering with the same appetite.

Just before the game started, we all sat down at the dining table to eat dinner together. The meal consisted of grilled chicken, shrimp, mashed potatoes, butternut squash, carrots, green beans; the meal could be compared to a Thanksgiving dinner, it was so good. And to top it all of, there were yummy desserts made just in time for the game. But for the three year-old little girl (my roommate’s niece), all she wanted was to skip the meal and go right to the dessert. She refused the carrots and green beans, screaming at the top of her lungs for a piece of a peanut-butter chocolate chip cookie. So what does the mother do? She says, “If you eat your carrots and green beans, you will get the peanut-butter chocolate chip cookie”. And so what did the little girl do? She immediately quieted down and ate those carrots and green beans like they were her favorite foods, just like she ate that peanut-butter chocolate chip cookie five minutes later. I watched the whole contingent interaction happen, and the whole time, I realized just how much our eating habits are learned and reinforced at such a young age.

If I had been dumb enough to publicly criticize my roommate’s sister-in-law and her parenting style, I would’ve suggested an alternative solution to the carrot and green bean dilemma. Research from Birch shows that other ways, such as fun activities, praise, and non-food rewards, can get the child to eat the unliked food while also increasing the preferences for those same foods. So instead of decreasing the preference of these foods with the increasing preference for another food (usually foods that parents don’t want their children to eat all the time), these children are willing to eat these “unliked” foods while the preference for them is, at the same time, increasing: every parent’s dream.