Do you use food to super size your ego ?

In the world today – status is marked by the size of your possessions.

You are bigger as a person if you have a

Bigger house
Bigger car
Bigger TV
Bigger dog

The only thing where small is cool is in the electronics domain.

Supersize your meal

Unfortunately, supersizing the house, the car and the TV take money, lots of it.

When you don’t have that kind of money, then what ?

Well, one option is to go into debt. Significant numbers of people (and governments) select this one, which seldom ends happily.

But, for those without some form of collateral, buying a BIG ticket item is not a viable choice. However, supersizing dinner is an accessible option.

Purchasing BIG

Researchers from Northwestern University investigated whether there was a relationship between how big someone feels and their dinner portion.

The research team conducted a series of experiments testing the size-status connection.

In one of the experiments, coffee habits were put to the test. They found a large coffee was consistently ranked higher than the medium or small cup, even when the price was identical.
In another experiment, people bought a big smoothie when they were with friends, but ordered a smaller one when dining on their own.
When the researcher made the participants feel more powerless, they found they tended to pick up bigger pieces of bagel, when offered the snack.

The researchers concluded a fair number of the over sized, might in fact be opting to supersize to inflate their status. The unfortunate by-product of this behaviour, is a supersized waistline.

Remember big wigs eat hors d’oeuvres

When big wigs attend a BIG event, in their big car and fancy suit, they typical dine on tiny snacks. Just like small cell phones and computers are cool, small snacks are preferred in the world of BIG.

In fact, the definition of a perfect hors d’oeuvre, is a portion of food which can be popped into your mouth without any stretching or contorting. And big bonus, without leaving greasy fingers.

It really is just a matter of perspective. A change in perspective can quickly change favoured portion sizes, this is precisely what the researchers discovered. When they “educated” the people participating in their study on the dining habits of the rich and famous, they saw powerless participants go SMALL.

When you’re feeling a little small inside

Imagine you’re dining at a swanky event and go with bite size bits. The super rich don’t supersize they super shrink their dinner.

Be careful – small packages have a habit of blowing your diet.

Super Size Me: Product Size as a Signal of Status. Journal of Consumer Researchl (2012) David Dubois, Derek D. Rucker, Adam D. Galinsky.

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