Marieke A. Adriaanse

Finding the Critical Cue: Implementation Intentions to Change One's Diet Work Best When Tailored to Personally Relevant Reasons for Unhealthy Eating

Implementation intentions promote acting on ones good intentions. But does specifying where and when to act also suffice when goals involve complex change that requires not merely initiating a behavior but rather substituting a habit with a new response? In a pilot study and two experiments, the authors investigated the efficacy of implementation intentions to replace unhealthy snacks with healthy snacks by linking different types of cues for unhealthy snacking (if-part) to healthy snacking (then-part). The pilot study identified cues for unhealthy snacking, differentiating between situational (where/when) and motivational (why) cues. Studies 1 and 2 tested the efficacy of implementation intentions that specified either situational or motivational cues in altering snacking habits. Results showed that implementation intentions specifying motivational cues decreased unhealthy snack consumption whereas the classic specification of where and when did not. Extending previous research, for complex behavior change “why” seems more important than “where and when.”

Breaking Habits With Implementation Intentions: A Test of Underlying Processes

Implementation intentions specifying the replacement of a habitual response with an alternative response in a critical situation can overrule habits. In three experiments the cognitive effects of such counterhabitual implementation intentions were investigated. Results showed that implementation intentions eliminated the cognitive advantage of the habitual means in the “horse race” with the alternative response. That is, in the control condition, the habitual means was more accessible than the alternative means on encountering the critical situation, but this was no longer the case when implementation intentions were formulated. However, the cognitive advantage of the habitual means was not immediately replaced by an automatic activation of the alternative means. This suggests that formulating counterhabitual implementation intentions increases individuals’ flexibility to choose which behavior to perform in the critical situation but that actual behavior will depart from their habits only to the extent that individuals have strong alternative goal intentions.

Assessing Yourself as an Emotional Eater: Mission Impossible?

OBJECTIVE The extent to which individuals are emotional eaters has typically been assessed by peoples self-reported desire to eat when they experience negative emotions. Elevated scores on these emotional eater scales have been associated with eating pathology and obesity. However, evidence that individuals scoring high on these scales truly increase their food intake during emotional encounters is inconclusive. The current studies tested whether emotional eater scales capture the proposed tendency to eat when feeling emotional. DESIGN In four experiments with different emotion induction procedures, female participants were randomly assigned to negative emotion or control conditions. In the control conditions positive or no emotions were induced. Next, food consumption was assessed by bogus taste tests. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Emotional eater status, emotional experience, and actual consumption of different food types. RESULTS Individuals describing themselves as emotional eaters did not increase food intake during emotional encounters as compared to control conditions or individuals not judging themselves as emotional eaters. CONCLUSION The results suggest that self-reported emotional eaters do not increase food intake during emotional encounters in the laboratory. Implications of these findings are discussed, including the idea that it may be complex to adequately assess ones own emotional eating behavior.

Emotional eating: Eating when emotional or emotional about eating?

This article examines the extent to which self-reported emotional eating is a predictor of unhealthy snack consumption or, alternatively, an expression of beliefs about the relation between emotions and eating derived from concerns about eating behaviour. Three studies were conducted. Study 1 (N = 151) and Study 2 (N = 184) investigated the predictive validity of emotional eating compared to habit strength in snack consumption, employing 7-day snack diaries. Both studies demonstrated that snack consumption was not predicted by emotional eating but depended on the habit of unhealthy snacking and on restraint eating. As emotional eating was not a significant predictor of snack intake, Study 3 addressed the alternative hypothesis of emotional eating being an expression of concerns about eating behaviour. Results from this cross-sectional survey (N = 134) showed that emotional eating was significantly associated with several concerns. Together, these studies show that snack intake is better predicted by habit strength and restraint eating than by emotional eating. Additionally, the results suggest that in normal-weight women the concept of emotional eating may not capture the tendency to eat under emotional conditions, but rather reflects beliefs about the relation between emotions and eating.

Good mood food. Positive emotion as a neglected trigger for food intake

UNLABELLED Research on emotions as a trigger for food intake has mainly been focused on the role of negative emotions. In the present studies the role of positive emotions as a trigger for food intake is investigated in a sample of healthy participants with a normal weight. Two laboratory studies were conducted in which positive emotions or no emotions were induced (Study 1) or in addition negative emotions were induced (Study 2) after which unhealthy food intake was assessed by bogus taste tests. In Study 3, food intake was assessed by registering snack intake in a 7-day diary study together with the emotions accompanying each snacking episode to provide a more ecologically valid test of our hypothesis. Studies 1 and 2 showed that positive emotions, compared to the control conditions, evoked more caloric intake. Dietary restraint did not moderate this effect. Study 2 additionally showed that positive emotions evoked caloric intake to the same extent as negative emotions. Study 3 showed that snack intake in daily life was reported to result from positive emotions more frequently than from negative emotions. CONCLUSIONS Positive emotions serve as an important but under-investigated trigger for unhealthy food intake that deserves further scrutiny. Future research should further investigate whether food intake results from emotional arousal in general, or from emotional valence in particular.

Planning What Not to Eat: Ironic Effects of Implementation Intentions Negating Unhealthy Habits

The present studies tested the effectiveness of implementation intentions with an “if [situation], then not [habitual response]” structure. Based on ironic process theory and the literature on the processing of negations, it was expected that these “negation implementation intentions” would, ironically, strengthen the habit (situation—response association) one aims to break. In line with the hypotheses, forming negation implementation intentions resulted in cognitive ironic rebound effects as well as behavioral ironic rebound effects compared to an intention only condition or a replacement implementation intention. Additionally, it was found that negation implementation intentions are most likely to result in ironic rebound effects when the habit to be negated is strong. Although implementation intentions are generally highly effective in facilitating behavior change even when this involves breaking unwanted habits, the present research suggests that they are ineffective when they have a negating structure.

Health on Impulse : When Low Self-Control Promotes Healthy Food Choices

OBJECTIVE Food choices are often made mindlessly, when individuals are not able or willing to exert self-control. Under low self-control, individuals have difficulties to resist palatable but unhealthy food products. In contrast to previous research aiming to foster healthy choices by promoting high self-control, this study exploits situations of low self-control, by strategically using the tendency under these conditions to rely on heuristics (simple decision rules) as quick guides to action. More specifically, the authors associated healthy food products with the social proof heuristic (i.e., normative cues that convey majority endorsement for those products). METHOD One hundred seventy-seven students (119 men), with an average age of 20.47 years (SD = 2.25) participated in the experiment. This study used a 2 (low vs. high self-control) × 2 (social proof vs. no heuristic) × 2 (trade-off vs. control choice) design, with the latter as within-subjects factor. The dependent variable was the number of healthy food choices in a food-choice task. RESULTS In line with previous studies, people made fewer healthy food choices under low self-control. However, this negative effect of low self-control on food choice was reversed when the healthy option was associated with the social proof heuristic. In that case, people made more healthy choices under conditions of low self-control. CONCLUSION Low self-control may be even more beneficial for healthy food choices than high self-control in the presence of a heuristic. Exploiting situations of low self-control is a new and promising method to promote health on impulse.

Dieting and the self-control of eating in everyday environments: an experience sampling study

OBJECTIVE The literature on dieting has sparked several debates over how restrained eaters differ from unrestrained eaters in their self-regulation of healthy and unhealthy food desires and what distinguishes successful from unsuccessful dieters. We addressed these debates using a four-component model of self-control that was tested using ecological momentary assessment, long-term weight change, and a laboratory measure of inhibitory control. DESIGN A large sample of adults varying in dietary restraint and inhibitory control (as measured by a Stroop task) were equipped with smartphones for a week. They were beeped on random occasions and provided information on their experience and control of healthy and unhealthy food desires in everyday environments. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES The main outcome measures were desire strength, experienced conflict, resistance, enactment of desire, and weight change after a 4-month follow-up. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS Dietary restraint was unrelated to desire frequency and strength, but associated with higher conflict experiences and motivation to use self-control with regard to food desires. Most importantly, relationships between dietary restraint and resistance, enactment of desire, and long-term weight change were moderated by inhibitory control: Compared with dieters low in response inhibition, dieters high in response inhibition were more likely to attempt to resist food desires, not consume desired food (especially unhealthy food), and objectively lost more weight over the ensuing 4 months. These results highlight the combinatory effects of aspects of the self-control process in dieters and highlight the value in linking theoretical process frameworks, experience sampling, and laboratory-based assessment in health science. STATEMENT OF CONTRIBUTION What is already known on this subject? Dieting is a multifaceted process that can be viewed from the lens of self-control. Dietary restraint measures can be used to capture dieting status, but it is relatively unclear what differentiates successful from unsuccessful dieters (e.g., differences in desire frequency, desire strength, motivation, executive functions). What does this study add? A novel four-step conceptual model of self-control is applied to eating behaviour in everyday life. This model allows a fine-grained look at the self-control process in restrained eaters (dieters) as compared to non-dieters. Dieters and non-dieters do not differ in desire frequency and strength (they are not simply more tempted). Dieters high (as compared to low) in inhibitory control are more likely to engage in self-control. Dieters high (as compared to low) in inhibitory control are more likely to resist unhealthy food desires. Dieters high (as compared to low) in inhibitory control are more likely to loose weight over a 4-month period. Together, the study shows clear differences among successful and unsuccessful dieters that can be linked to differences in executive functioning (inhibitory control). The present article is one of the first studies combining a conceptual model with smartphone experience sampling to study weight control and thus paradigmatic from a methodological perspective.

“Instant Success” Turning Temptations Into Cues for Goal-Directed Behavior

Contrary to lay intuition, counteractive control theory posits that tempting food cues can help individuals to act in accordance with their long-term dieting goal. However, studies have shown that temptations trigger goal-directed behavior only in successful but not in unsuccessful self-regulators. The aim of the present study was to test whether it is possible to create facilitated temptation–goal associations in unsuccessful dieters using implementation intentions (e.g., “If I see or smell chocolate then I will follow my goal to diet”) and whether this indeed stimulates more successful self-regulation. It was found that implementation intentions linking a temptation to a dieting goal lead to self-perceived improved resistance to (Study 1) as well as reduced consumption (Study 2) of tempting snacks compared to a control condition. Moreover, Study 2 revealed that the reduced snack consumption was indeed related to facilitated temptation–goal associations in participants who had formed implementation intentions.

Effortless inhibition: habit mediates the relation between self-control and unhealthy snack consumption

In contrast to prevailing beliefs, recent research suggests that trait self-control promotes health behavior not because those high in self-control are more successful at resisting single temptations, but rather because they develop adaptive habits. The present paper presents a first empirical test of this novel suggestion by investigating the mediating role of habit in explaining the relation between self-control and unhealthy snacking behavior. Results showed that self-control was negatively associated with unhealthy snack consumption and unhealthy snacking habits. As hypothesized, the relation between self-control and unhealthy snack intake was mediated by habit strength. Self-control was not associated with fruit consumption or fruit consumption habits. These results provide the first evidence for the notion that high self-control may influence the formation of habits and in turn affect behavior. Moreover, results imply that self-control may be particularly influential in case of inhibiting unhealthy food intake rather than promoting healthy food intake.