HUNGER-INDUCED FINICKINESS IN HUMANS

Two experiments were conducted to examine the effect of hunger on fini ckiness in humans. Subjects (a total of 157 undergraduate female diete rs and non-dieters) were food-deprived and then subsequently either gi ven a snack (not-hungry group) or left food-deprived (hungry group) be fore being given ad libitum access to either good-tasting or bad-tasti ng (quinine-adultered) milkshake. Common sense predicted that hungry s ubjects would drink more milkshake than would not-hungry subjects, reg ardless of milkshake palatability. Hungry subjects did in fact drink m ore of the good-tasting milkshake than did not-hungry subjects, but th ey also drank less of the bad-tasting milkshake. We discuss possible r easons why hunger might increase rejection of bad-tasting food, as wel l as the limiting conditions of the effect.