Inhibitory self-control moderates the effect of changed implicit food evaluations on snack food consumption

Abstract

Please cite this as: Haynes, A., Kemps, E., and Moffitt, R., 2015. The current study used a modified implicit association test (IAT) to change implicit 3 evaluations of unhealthy snack food and tested its effects on subsequent consumption. 4Furthermore, we investigated whether these effects were moderated by inhibitory self- to assess consumption of unhealthy snack foods. Inhibitory self-control was measured using a 10 self-report scale. As predicted, the implicit evaluation of unhealthy food became more it suggests that an intervention that retrains implicit food evaluations could be effective at 18 reducing unhealthy eating, particularly among those with low inhibitory self-control.

The moderating role of state inhibitory control in the effect of evaluative conditioning on temptation and unhealthy snacking

“…The findings of Haynes et al [30] suggest that an intervention aimed at retraining associations between unhealthy food and negative affect may be most effective if targeted at individuals who are dispositionally low in inhibitory self-control. However, the longevity of the effect of evaluative conditioning on consumption behaviour is currently unknown.…”

“…The consistent pairing of target and affective stimuli trains an automatic association between the categories, shifting individuals' implicit evaluation of the target stimuli to become more positive or more negative, depending on the pairing. Previous studies have provided consistent evidence for the efficacy of these retraining procedures in changing implicit evaluations of various stimuli including unhealthy food [30,40,49], alcohol [41,43], the self [15], and mathematics [22].…”

“…Indeed, Haynes et al [30] found that the effects of an implicit food evaluation retraining intervention on consumption were moderated by self-reported trait inhibitory self-control (i.e., the extent to which participants were generally successful at controlling behaviours that involve inhibiting unhealthy impulses [e.g., "resisting temptation"]). This study did not assess experienced temptation or desire to indulge in unhealthy food, but found that implicit food evaluations were successfully modified across the sample, such that participants trained to associate food with negative concepts showed a significantly more negative implicit evaluation of unhealthy food following the training.…”

“…Given that implicit food evaluations and temptation are correlated, and that implicit food evaluations have previously been found to be no less resistant to change among individuals with high rather than low trait inhibitory self-control [30,31], we predicted that evaluative conditioning would affect temptation across the sample. However, we expected that evaluative conditioning effects on intake would vary by situational levels of inhibitory control.…”

“…The capacity for inhibition of impulses not only varies between individuals in a stable trait-like manner (e.g., assessed with self-report questionnaires as in Haynes et al [30]), it also varies across situations. Retraining implicit food evaluations could temporarily reduce the temptation to indulge in unhealthy foods and consequently reduce unhealthy snacking in situations where individuals lack strong inhibitory control (reflected in lower state inhibitory control).…”