Food choices are influenced by social class, but this hilariously awful survey won’t get it right

All of those are big questions, but as I contemplated trying to address them in more depth—starting with the endlessly fascinating question of crab Rangoon—I found this survey that I need to share with you. The concept was great:

Food has always been tied to class. Silvia Bellezza and Jonah Berger at the University of Pennsylvania now believe they have a way to identify a person’s social class based on how they feel about certain foods. The results are not always what you would expect.

What do your food choices say about your social class? For each of the following dishes, indicate your feelings toward it below.

It sounded very rigorous—for an online quiz. It was “developed by professionals” who “work with psychometrics,” and “Test scores for the present test are entered into an anonymized database. Statistical analysis of the quiz is performed to ensure maximum validity and accuracy of the results.” It even cited the work of Pierre Bourdieu. 

Then it went off the rails because it is so bad. I’m going to try not to give you spoilers here, but the quiz sorts 35 foods into five class groups, and which foods are upper class, upper middle class, middle class, lower middle class, and lower class are a hot mess. Mostly it’s that the survey makers don’t seem to have fully understood the quite interesting research they based it on. But it’s also that—okay, fine—to break down and give just one spoiler, fish and chips is listed as a lower class food (fish sticks are a separate entry). However, if you’re using the term fish and chips, you’re affecting a British terminology that changes the class valence of the basic food of fried fish and french fries. 

But as silly as it is, it’s tremendously fun to try to figure out what’s going on with it. What does it tell you about yourself, and exactly how wrong is it?