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The recent study We are what we eat: Cross-cultural self-prioritization effects for food stimuli, published in the British Journal of Psychology, was conducted by an Italian-Japanese research team coordinated by Mario Dalmaso from the Department of Developmental and Socialization Psychology at the University of Padua, in collaboration with Waseda University in Tokyo. The study explored the connection between food and personal identity.
The research involved Italian and Japanese participants, two cultures with rich yet very different culinary traditions. Volunteers were shown images of typical Italian and Japanese dishes and asked to quickly and accurately associate them with either a verbal label representing themselves or an unknown person. The results showed that, although participants were able to associate both types of food with their own identity, they tended to feel closer to and more “identified” with the dishes typical of their own culture.
“This shows that food is not just nourishment but also a fundamental element of our identity,” explains Mario Dalmaso, lead author of the study. “Of course, we live in a globalized world, and in recent years dishes from different cultures—such as sushi—have become very popular in Italy, and vice versa, given how much Italian cuisine is loved abroad. But despite this openness and cultural exchange, people still tend to feel more attached to the flavors that belong to their own roots.”
It is well known that stimuli related to our identity, such as our face or name, are processed by the brain with priority. A similar mechanism may apply to food, which physically becomes part of our bodies. But what would happen if the comparison involved geographically closer cuisines (for example, Italians and French, or Japanese and Koreans)? And what if, instead of Italy and Japan—two countries with very strong culinary identities—we compared countries with less “identity-based” cuisines (such as Singapore or the United States)? Would the results be the same? These questions open up interesting possibilities for future research, as it is plausible that the observed effect might be less pronounced in such cases.
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The recent study We are what we eat: Cross-cultural self-prioritization effects for food stimuli, published in the British Journal of Psychology, was conducted by an Italian-Japanese research team coordinated by Mario Dalmaso from the Department of Developmental and Socialization Psychology at the University of Padua, in collaboration with Waseda University in Tokyo. The study explored the connection between food and personal identity.
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“This shows that food is not just nourishment but also a fundamental element of our identity,” explains Mario Dalmaso, lead author of the study. “Of course, we live in a globalized world, and in recent years dishes from different cultures—such as sushi—have become very popular in Italy, and vice versa, given how much Italian cuisine is loved abroad. But despite this openness and cultural exchange, people still tend to feel more attached to the flavors that belong to their own roots.”
It is well known that stimuli related to our identity, such as our face or name, are processed by the brain with priority. A similar mechanism may apply to food, which physically becomes part of our bodies. But what would happen if the comparison involved geographically closer cuisines (for example, Italians and French, or Japanese and Koreans)? And what if, instead of Italy and Japan—two countries with very strong culinary identities—we compared countries with less “identity-based” cuisines (such as Singapore or the United States)? Would the results be the same? These questions open up interesting possibilities for future research, as it is plausible that the observed effect might be less pronounced in such cases.
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