False Memories About Food Can Lead to Food Avoidance

In two experiments, we suggested to 336 participants that as children they had become ill after eating either hard–boiled eggs or dill pickles. Eighty–three additional control participants in Experiment 1 received no suggestion. In both experiments, participants' confidence increased in line with the suggestion. In the second experiment, we used a pretest/posttest design and found that enhanced confidence was accompanied by avoidance of the relevant food item. These results demonstrate that adults can be led to believe falsely that eating certain foods as children made them sick and that such false beliefs can have consequences.