As Pleasure Unfolds: Hedonic Responses to Tempting Food

Why do chronic dieters often violate their dieting goals? One possibility is that they experience stronger hedonic responses to tempting food than normal eaters do. We scrutinized hedonic processing in dieters and normal eaters (a) by manipulating food preexposure and (b) by assessing both immediate...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Psychological science 2010-12, Vol.21 (12), p.1863-1870
Main Authors: Hofmann, Wilhelm, van Koningsbruggen, Guido M., Stroebe, Wolfgang, Ramanathan, Suresh, Aarts, Henk
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Appetite
Behavior
Behavioural psychology
Craving
Delayed
Diet
Diet, Reducing - psychology
Dieting
Emotions
Feeding Behavior - psychology
Female
Food
Food law
Humans
Male
Mental stimulation
Models, Psychological
Nutrition
Obesity
Pictographs
Pleasure
Power
Self control
Self regulation
Self-management
Social psychology
Stimuli
Temptation
Weight loss diets
Young Adult
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Summary:Why do chronic dieters often violate their dieting goals? One possibility is that they experience stronger hedonic responses to tempting food than normal eaters do. We scrutinized hedonic processing in dieters and normal eaters (a) by manipulating food preexposure and (b) by assessing both immediate and delayed hedonic responses to tempting food with an adapted affectmisattribution procedure. Without food preexposure, dieters showed less positive hedonic responses than normal eaters (Study 1). When preexposed to tempting-food stimuli, however, dieters exhibited more positive delayed hedonic responses than normal eaters (Studies 1 and 2). Furthermore, delayed hedonic responding was meaningfully related to self-reported power of food and state cravings (Study 2). These findings suggest that dieters experience difficulties in down-regulating hedonic affect when in a "hot" state and that self-regulation research may benefit from a greater emphasis on temporal dynamics rather than static differences.
ISSN:0956-7976
1467-9280
DOI:10.1177/0956797610389186