FOOD SHARING AND FEEDING ANOTHER PERSON SUGGEST INTIMACY - 2 STUDIES OF AMERICAN-COLLEGE STUDENTS

Ethnographic work indicates that food transfer has social significance , but food transfer has not previously been considered as a nonverbal communication channel. We categorize social food transfer along two di mensions: nature of the behaviour in the transfer (X shares food with or feeds Y), and the state of the food transferred (Y's food never con tacted by X, or Y's food previously bitten/tasted/touched by X; we cal l the latter food consubstantiation (shared substance)). These two dim ensions generate the four conditions investigated in this study: no sh aring, sharing, sharing with consubstantiation, and feeding. The socia l significance of these types of situations was assessed in two ways. American college students indicated in a questionnaire both the extent to which they transfer food within different relationships, and what they took to be normative among American college students. Second, a d ifferent group of students participated in an Asch impression study in which they observed a videotape of two young adults of opposite sex e ating at a restaurant, with the variable across subjects being the fou r conditions designated above. Viewers were asked to assess the relati onship between the young adults, and to rate the degree of intimacy be tween the adults in terms of mutual feelings and acts of intimacy (e.g . sharing drinks, touching, having sexual relations). Results from bot h studies are congruent, and indicate that sharing implies a positive/ friendly social relationship, and feeding implies a stronger, often ro mantic relationship. Consubstantiation superimposed on sharing modestl y increased judgments of intimacy and closeness of relationship. (C) 1 998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.