Artist Unknown: Who's to Blame...THANK YOU "LAW AND ORDER"

30 September 2008

Who's to Blame...THANK YOU "LAW AND ORDER"

Tonight: Angela Johnson @ The Showroom from 7:30 p.m. until 8:30 p.m.

Contact alix@hub-bub.com for more details…

Now this Explains why we Over Eat…..

Eat Too Much? Blame 'Law and Order'

If you're eating way too much food, you might just be able to blame it on "Law and Order. "Or "CSI" Or "Cold Case." Television shows that focus on crime appear to make viewers eat and shop more, according to a new report from researchers at Arizona State University.

It's all about death, blood and gore. When viewers are reminded about their own impending mortality, they not only spend more on groceries, but also eat more of those groceries. "We found that when people think about the fact that they're going to die someday--not now, but someday--they want to consume more of everything," Naomi Mandel, co-author of the study and an associate professor of marketing at Arizona State University, told MSNBC contributor Diane Mapes. "We find this with snacks and drinks but also all kinds of different foods: frozen foods, meats, vegetables, everything."

Mandel first noticed the trend after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 and so created experiments to measure consumers' response to "mortality salience," academic-speak for an awareness they will die. One group wrote about their impending deaths, while a control group wrote about going to the dentist.

Afterward, each group was given a list of groceries for a hypothetical party and they were asked to check off items they would purchase. Those who wrote about death selected significantly more items than those who wrote about the dentist. In a second experiment, two groups were asked to write about either their own deaths or a painful medical procedure. When they were finished writing, they were asked to taste-test cookies. The group that wrote about death ate 25 percent more cookies that the control group.

What does this have to do with crime TV? "Consumers, especially those with a lower self-esteem, may be more susceptible to over consumption when confronted with images of death during the news or their favorite crime scene investigation shows," Mandel concludes in her study. "If people are watching and thinking something like this could happen to them, it's likely to cause them to over-consume." The study findings were published in the Journal of Consumer Research.

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30 September 2008

Who's to Blame...THANK YOU "LAW AND ORDER"

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