Is Self-Serving Self-Serving? Who Serves Food Shapes Self-evaluation and Eating Decisions

Eating meals that are served by someone else is commonplace: 50% of all meals are consumed away from the home, and two-thirds of Americans eat out at least every other day (Stewart, Blisard, and Jolliffe 2006). Being served offers convenience – but does it come at a cost for health? Indeed, consumers are aware of making more unhealthy choices when eating out (Gregory, Smith and Wendt 2011). In this research, we explore this phenomenon and investigate how one predominant feature of eating out, being served by someone else instead of serving oneself, might drive it. Based on the literatures of agency and self-serving attributions, we theorize that being more versus less physically involved in the act of serving food differentially affords self-serving attributions of responsibility for one’s food choices. Thereby, it may shape how consumers feel about themselves after eating, and even alter their portion-size choices beforehand. A variety of consumer research has shown that consumption experiences and behavior can be significantly altered by the degree to which the consumer is active in the process (Botti and McGill 2006; Norton, Mochon, and Ariely 2012). Agency – the sense of controlling one’s actions – considerably influences judgment and decision making, particularly by intensifying affective reactions (Botti and McGill 2011; Landman 1987). Accordingly, agency attributions are consequential and are often distorted in self-serving ways to protect a positive self-view (Campbell and Sedikides 1999; Miller and Ross 1975). People attribute responsibility for favorable outcomes to themselves but attribute responsibility for unfavorable outcomes to others (Arkin, Gleason, and Johnston 1976; Blaine and Crocker 1993). They also self-penalize less when they can explain away responsibility to other factors (Bandura, 1990), something especially pronounced in goal-domains (Dunning, Perie, and Story 1991).