Lesson 4.3.6.1

4.3.6.1 Explanations for food preferences Quiz: AQA Psychology, Unit 3

20 questions

Written by Revision Ninja · Last reviewed 11 October 2026

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Lesson 4.3.6.1, Explanations for food preferences: 20 multiple choice questions for the AQA Psychology (7182), Unit 3: Issues and options in Psychology, written with Revision Ninja.

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The 20 questions

  1. What is neophobia in the context of food preferences?

    • A preference for familiar foods that is produced by repeated exposure in childhood, and which stays fixed for the whole of adult life
    • A strong liking for sweet foods that is present from birth in all humans, and which is usually stronger in young children than in adults
    • A learned association between eating a food and feeling unwell afterwards, which usually develops over many meals rather than in one episode
    • A fear or avoidance of unfamiliar foods, which is thought to have protected early humans from poisonous substances

  2. What is taste aversion?

    • An innate dislike of bitter tastes that all humans show from infancy onwards
    • A reduced ability to detect sweet flavours caused by hormonal changes in adults
    • A preference for foods that a person has eaten frequently in their own culture
    • A learned avoidance of a food after it has been paired with nausea or illness

  3. Which explanation of food preferences proposes that preferences evolved because they helped survival?

    • The social learning explanation
    • The cultural transmission explanation
    • The evolutionary explanation
    • The operant conditioning explanation

  4. Which factor is part of the learning explanation of food preferences?

    • Inherited sensitivity to bitter compounds in the tongue
    • Changes in the level of ghrelin released before breakfast
    • Social influence, such as eating the same foods as family or peers
    • Reduced activity in the hypothalamus following a meal

  5. A toddler refuses to try broccoli at first but later accepts it after seeing a parent eat it several times. Which explanation best accounts for this change?

    • A genetic mutation that changes taste receptors during the second year of life
    • An innate taste aversion that has been removed by the child's gradual growth
    • A hormonal change caused by leptin rising after a meal is eaten
    • Social learning through modelling, with repeated exposure reducing neophobia

  6. A person becomes ill after eating shellfish and afterwards avoids all shellfish. Which process best explains this avoidance?

    • Cultural norms that teach people to avoid shellfish for religious reasons
    • Taste aversion, through the association of the food with illness
    • Neophobia, since the person has never eaten shellfish before this event
    • Social learning through observation of a family member avoiding shellfish

  7. A study finds that children who grow up in households where a specific vegetable is eaten daily prefer that vegetable more than children from homes where it is never eaten. Which explanation is best supported?

    • The evolutionary explanation, since the children share the same ancestral food history
    • Taste aversion, since the children have been made ill by the vegetable in the past
    • The role of learning, through repeated exposure and social influence within the household
    • Neophobia, since the children are more fearful of the vegetable in the second household

  8. Which feature of the evolutionary explanation makes it difficult to test directly?

    • It can only be tested using animals that have no social contact with humans
    • It assumes that food preferences are learned only through classical conditioning in adults
    • It requires that all participants be given the same food at the same time each day
    • It relies on inferring past selection pressures, which cannot be observed or replicated in the present

  9. Which evidence would most support the view that food preferences are partly learned rather than purely innate?

    • Neophobia is shown to be stronger in older adults than in young children
    • Preferences for a food change after people experience it repeatedly in a new social setting
    • Taste receptors are found to differ between individuals from different countries
    • Newborn infants show the same preference for a food in every culture studied

  10. A researcher argues that cultural norms about eating are only learned. Which criticism of this view is most appropriate?

    • Some food avoidances, such as taste aversion, can follow a single pairing with illness, which hints at biological preparedness
    • Cultural norms are inherited through genes passed directly from parent to child, so that they are fixed at birth and cannot be changed later on
    • Taste aversion has been shown to depend on reinforcement from the social group, so people avoid foods only when their peers are watching them eat
    • Learning theory states that food preferences cannot be changed once they are formed, so people keep the same tastes throughout their entire lives

  11. Which statement best describes the role of neophobia in the evolutionary explanation?

    • It is caused by a hormone that makes all foods taste identical to the eater
    • It only occurs in adults and never in children, so it has no adaptive value in childhood
    • It makes early humans cautious about new foods, reducing the risk of eating something poisonous
    • It causes early humans to seek out novel foods so that they gain more nutrients from each meal

  12. A group of adults is asked to rate a novel food after one, five and ten exposures. Their ratings rise steadily. Which explanation is best supported?

    • The food is becoming less toxic each time it is presented to the participants
    • Repeated exposure reduces neophobia and increases liking, which fits a learning account
    • Leptin levels are rising across the exposures and making the food taste sweeter
    • Taste aversion is being reinforced by the ratings participants give the food

  13. Which evaluation point applies to explanations of food preferences that rely only on evolution?

    • They explain cultural differences perfectly, but cannot explain individual variation
    • They cannot easily explain cultural differences in what people eat within the same species
    • They predict that all food preferences will change within a single generation
    • They provide a complete account, leaving no role for learning or social influence

  14. Why do learning explanations of food preferences emphasise social and cultural influences?

    • Because cultural influences only affect people who have experienced taste aversion
    • Because social influences change the genes that code for taste receptors in each person
    • Because people acquire food preferences by observing and imitating the eating behaviour of those around them
    • Because social influences prevent the body from producing ghrelin before meals

  15. A child who has been ill after eating a food stops eating it, even when told it is safe. Which explanation best accounts for the continued avoidance?

    • Social learning, since the child has observed a sibling refusing the food
    • Cultural norms, since the family has a rule against the food for all members
    • Taste aversion, which can persist because the learned association is strong after a single illness
    • Neophobia, since the child is trying a new food for the first time after the illness

  16. An evaluator says the evolutionary explanation of food preferences is supported by cross-species evidence. Which evidence would be most relevant?

    • Some animal species have learned to eat foods through human cooking techniques, which shows that eating patterns are driven by culture rather than by evolution
    • Many animal species avoid unfamiliar or potentially toxic foods, suggesting an adaptive basis for caution
    • Humans in different cultures eat a wide range of foods from their local environment, which shows that food choice is entirely independent of ancestral pressures
    • Many animals show no preference for food at all and eat whatever is available, which shows that evolution has never influenced eating behaviour in any way

  17. Which conclusion best integrates the evolutionary and learning explanations of food preferences?

    • Learning explanations are entirely correct and evolution has no role in food preferences, because all preferences are shaped by social exposure in childhood only
    • Food preferences are random and cannot be explained by either evolution or learning, so no theory can account for the foods people choose across cultures
    • Biological predispositions such as neophobia may shape what is learned, while social and cultural experience determines specific preferences
    • Evolutionary explanations are entirely correct and learning has no role in food preferences, because all tastes are fixed by natural selection from birth onwards

  18. A health worker wants to reduce a child's fear of a new vegetable. Which strategy is most consistent with the learning explanation?

    • Hiding the vegetable within other foods so the child does not notice it at all
    • Insisting that the child eats a large portion of the vegetable at a single meal
    • Offering the vegetable only after the child has been ill with a stomach upset
    • Repeated, low-pressure exposure to the vegetable alongside a trusted adult who eats it

  19. Which finding would challenge the claim that taste aversion is always learned from a single bad experience?

    • People tend to avoid foods that were paired with unpleasant smells during a previous illness
    • People show stronger aversions when the nausea occurs soon after eating the food
    • People sometimes avoid foods they have never eaten and have no association with illness
    • People often avoid foods that made them ill after several separate episodes of sickness

  20. Which finding best supports the view that food preferences develop partly through exposure rather than being fixed at birth?

    • Adults show no change in food liking after exposure, which proves that preferences are set before the age of two
    • Newborn infants show a fixed preference for the same vegetable in every culture studied, regardless of later exposure
    • Children's liking for a vegetable increases after repeated tasting sessions in which the food is offered without pressure
    • Children's liking for a vegetable decreases each time they taste it, because the taste becomes more unpleasant over time

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