A recent study has discovered a tendency for certain people to schedule dates with individuals in order to receive a free meal from them, even though they do not intend to have a relationship with their dates. Such a setup is known as a “foodie call”, and recent studies have shown that about 23-33% of women who participated in an online study have engaged in a “foodie call” before.
The research was carried out twice. The first study consisted of 820 female individuals with different relationship statuses and sexual orientation. The second study recruited solely heterosexual women, who are the focus of this research. Participants were asked to answer several questionnaires about their personality, what they thought of gender roles, if they had engaged in foodie calls before as well as their thoughts about foodie calls.
Findings reveal that most women who setup foodie calls do so occasionally or rarely, and they are more likely to think that foodie calls are acceptable. Majority of the participants believed that foodie calls were extremely or moderately unacceptable. Participants who have scheduled foodie calls before were also associated with higher scores for the “dark triad” personality trait of psychopathy, narcissism and Machiavellianism, indicating that they are more likely to exhibit manipulative behaviour in relationships.
The study might not be able to accurately gauge the prevalence of foodie calls as people might deliberately conceal their foodie call history to sustain favourable impressions. Furthermore, foodie calls are not just for heterosexual women – they can be perpetuated by anyone.
Category(s):Other, Personality problems, Relationships & Marriage
Source material from Science Daily
