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156 news posts in Psychology

Psychology

11 Jun 2021

Editor’s Choice Award for Evolutionary Psychology – January to March 2021

Professor Peter K. Jonason, the Specialty Chief Editor of the Evolutionary Psychology specialty section (Frontiers in Psychology), is delighted to announce the winners of the Editor’s Choice Award for January to March of 2021. The two articles selected have received notable attention within the community and offer important insights from the field of evolutionary psychology to better understand behavioral responses within the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Psychology

11 Mar 2021

Could coloring our steaks blue help reduce the world’s insatiable demand for meat?

By Prof Charles Spence, University of Oxford Image: SciePro/Shutterstock Blue has become an increasingly popular color in drinks and confectionary. Now, Prof Charles Spence of the University of Oxford asks what impact tainting meat blue would have in nudging consumers toward selecting a healthier and more sustainable diet? Have you ever heard about the infamous blue steak study? According to a story that has been circulating in the academic literature for 70 years, a group of people were once invited for a dinner of steak, fries, and peas. The lighting was so dim that it was impossible for the guests to discern the food’s true color. During the meal, the lighting was returned to normal suddenly revealing that the steak had been colored blue, the peas red, and the fries green. Many of the guests apparently immediately ran off to the bathroom to be sick. While this anecdote has appeared in numerous scientific papers over the last half century, typically to illustrate the sometimes aversive influence of (blue) food coloring, it turns out that it may be nothing more than that – a mere anecdote. According to a review of blue foods that I published recently in Frontiers in Psychology, […]