Paul Rozin
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Paul Rozin’s scholarly interests have included food selection in animals, the acquisition of fundamental reading skills, the neuropsychology of amnesia, and negativity dominance. He has studied the emotion of disgust and magical thinking, and how both can be barriers to public acceptance of new technologies or foods (e.g., recycled water, insects as food).
Rozin’s research on human food choice employs biological, psychological, and anthropological perspectives. He has studied the cultural evolution of cuisine, the development of food aversions, the development of food preferences, family influences in preference development, body image… He is currently working on the meaning of food in different cultures, the entry of food issues (e.g., meat, fat) into the moral domain in modern American culture, differences between French and American food worlds, attitudes to natural and genetic engineering, and the nature of remembered pleasure.
Paul Rozin is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a recipient of the American Psychological Association Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award. He was co-founder and co-director of the Solomon Asch Center for the Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict at the University of Pennsylvania.
In October 2023, he joins the IAS for a one-month writing residency.
Research Interests
Cultural psychology of food and eating, including the nature and origin of food preferences, the nature and evolution of cuisine, culture as a shaper of food attitudes and behaviors, psychology of meat.
Comparison of the food worlds of French and Americans
Although France and the United States are both wealthy, Western countries, they differ quite a bit in the way they deal with food and eating. Americans are more worried about their weight and the effects of the foods they eat on their health. In spite of this, the French are thinner and somewhat healthier; specifically the French have lower rates of cardiovascular disease. Fischler and Rozin have been investigating how these differences come about for about 20 years. They have found French-American differences in behavior: for example, French meals occur at much more regular times. They have found differences in food attitudes: forexample, the French focus on the pleasurable experience of eating foods, where Americans focus more on the health consequences of the foods they eat. There are also important differences in the food environments of the two countries. Opportunities for snacking are higher for Americans, and French serve smaller food portions. This project will summarize what is known about the French and American food worlds, from the data we have collected, and from historical, culinary, demographic and economic sources. The project will also attempt to explain the cause of the French-American differences, and what each country can learn from the other to maximize health, the pleasure of eating, and environmental sustainability.
Key Publications
Rozin, P., Fischler, C., Imada, S., Sarubin, A., & Wrzesniewski, A. (1999). Attitudes to food and the role of food in life: Comparisons of Flemish Belgium, France, Japan and the United States. Appetite, 33, 163-180.
Arbit, N., Ruby, M., and Rozin, P. (2017). Development and validation of the Meaning of Food in Life Questionnaire (MFLQ): Evidence for a new construct. Food Quality and Preference, 59, 35-45.
Rozin, P., Cohen, A., & Ruby, M. B. (2019). Food and eating. In D. Cohen & S. Kitayama (Eds), Handbook of Cultural Psychology, second edition. 447-477
Latest publications
Sproesser, G., Ruby, M. B., Arbit, N., Akotia, C.S., Alvarenga, M., Bhangaokar, R., Furumitsu, I., Hu, X., Imada, S., Kaptan, G., Kaufer-Horwitz, M., Menon, U., Fischler, C., Rozin, P., Schupp, H. T. & Renner, B. (2019). Understanding traditional and modern eating: The TEP10 framework. BMC Public Health, 19, 1606, 1-14.
Sproesser, G., Ruby, M. B., Arbit, N., Akotia, C.S., Alvarenga, M., Bhangaokar, R., Furumitsu, I., Hu, X., Imada, S., Kaptan, G., Kaufer-Horwitz, M., Menon, U., Fischler, C., Rozin, P., Schupp, H. T. & Renner, B. (2022). Similar or different? Comparing food cultures with regard to traditional and modern eating across ten countries. Food Research International, 157, 111106.
Rozin, P. and Holtermann, C. (2021). Binary categorization of the food world by American, French and Indian adults: Predominance of the healthy-unhealthy “dichotomy” Appetite, 163,\ 105150.
 Second online talk of the "Paris IAS Ideas" series, with the participation of Paul Rozin, University of Pennsylvania |
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