Supernormal Stimuli: Why We Love Junk Food

  Supranormal or supernormal stimuli are an interesting psychobiological phenomenon. They explain why there are specific circumstances in which our most basic instincts seem to fail. For example, with junk food: we love something that not only doesn’t nourish us but also has the potential to make us sick. The phenomenon of supernormal stimuli and their consequences was detected for the first time in the 1940s, by Konrad Lorenz and Niko Tinbergen. These famous researchers were considered among the founding fathers of ethology, the study of animal behavior. Therefore, as would be expected, they captured the phenomenon of supernormal stimuli…