Case report

Norm-Violation, Norm-Adherence, and Overeating

C. Peter Herman
Janet Polivy

Abstract

Two routes to overeating are discussed; they are both premised on people’s strong motivation to avoid eating excessively
and thereby avoid negative ascriptions associated with the overeating/overweight stereotype. The first route to overeating
involves infractions of restrictive intake norms: people who attempt to restrict their intake by implementing dietary
rules often run afoul of disinhibitory circumstances that undermine the self-control upon which successful dieting
depends. The second route to overeating involves adherence to restrictive intake norms in situations where it is unclear
how much eating is permitted. People search the environment for indicants of what constitutes permissible intake and
end up relying on such arbitrary criteria as portion size and the intake of other people. Using such criteria derived from
the eating situation often leads to overeating even while individuals believe that they are successfully restricting their intake.

Keywords

norm-violation; norm-adherence; overeating

Hrčak ID:

27297

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/27297

Publication date:

4.1.2007.

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