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Hunger Pangs Can Make You Buy Non-Food Items, Too

| February 18, 2015 Comment

Hunger Pangs Can Make You Buy Non-Food Items, Too – You would think that when people are hungry, they will naturally want to buy food items when shopping … right? A new study shows that hungry people buy non-food items, too.

Researchers from the US and Hong Kong conducted five lab and field studies that showed how people respond to non-food items like binder clips, when hungry.

In the first study, researchers asked participants to rate how hungry they were and then to perform a word-association task that included acquisition, food-related, and other words. Participants who were hungry were more likely to associate acquisition words with food words, than those who were not hungry.

In a second study, researchers asked participants before and after entering a restaurant how much they would like to buy certain items, and found that those who had not eaten were keener on buying non-food items.

In a third study, researchers asked participants at a store if they would like free binder clips and found that those who were hungry wanted more binder clips than those who were not.

In a fourth study, participants were told not to eat anything before a cake taste test, and were then offered free binder clips. The results were the same as in the third test.

Researchers analyzed data from all the studies and found that when participants were hungry, they wanted to acquire even non-food items, and it didn’t matter if the items were free or not, or if the items helped satisfy their hunger or not. The results were published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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