Effects of mood induction on eating behavior and cigarette craving in dietary restrainers

Effect of emotional priming on eating willingness of women with restrictive diet

Background

There is controversy regarding whether negative or positive emotions have a greater impact on the eating behavior of restrictive dieters. Moreover, it is unclear whether unconscious emotional processing can predict the eating behavior of restrictive dieters. This study investigated the effects of conscious and unconscious emotional processing on the dietary behavior of women with restrictive diet.

Methods

Female student participants (N = 600) completed the Dutch Eating Behavior Questionnaire to screen 60 each of successful, unsuccessful restrictive and unrestricted eaters. They were randomly and equally divided into two groups for supra-threshold and subliminal emotional priming and carried out a behavioral task to index eating intentions.

Results

The restrictive dieters increase their willingness to eat when they are in a positive mood, even if they are not consciously aware of their happiness. Furthermore, the unsuccessful restrictive dieters are more intense.

Conclusion

This study presents empirical evidence on the impact of positive emotions on the eating intention of restrictive dieters and the cognitive characteristics of unsuccessful restrictive dieters. Additionally, it offers guidance for unsuccessful restrictive dieters to personalize their treatment goals.

Prevalence of Emotional Eating in Groups of Students with Varied Diets and Physical Activity in Poland

Background: Emotional eating (EE) is not a separate eating disorder, but rather a type of behavior within a group of various eating behaviors that are influenced by habits, stress, emotions, and individual attitudes toward eating. The relationship between eating and emotions can be considered on two parallel levels: psychological and physiological. In the case of the psychological response, stress generates a variety of bodily responses relating to coping with stress. Objective: Therefore, the main objective of this study was to evaluate and compare the prevalence of emotional eating in groups of students in health-related and non-health-related fields in terms of their differential health behaviors—diet and physical activity levels. Material and Methods: The cross-sectional survey study included 300 individuals representing two groups of students distinguished by their fields of study—one group was in health-related fields (HRF) and the other was in non-health-related fields (NRF). The study used standardized questionnaires: the PSS-10 and TFEQ-13. Results: The gender of the subjects was as follows: women, 60.0% (174 subjects) (HRF: 47.1%, n= 82; NRF: 52.9%, n = 92); men, 40.0% (116 subjects) (HRF: 53.4%, n = 62; NRF: 46.6%, n = 54). The age of the subjects was 26 years (±2 years). Based on the results of the TFEQ-13, among 120 subjects (41.4%) there were behaviors consistent with limiting food intake (HRF: 72.4%; NRF: 11.0%), while 64 subjects (20.7%) were characterized by a lack of control over food intake (HRF: 13.8%, 20 subjects; NRF: 27.4%, 20 subjects). Emotional eating was characteristic of 106 students (37.9%), with the NRF group dominating (61.6%, n = 90). It was observed that a high PSS-10 score is mainly characteristic of individuals who exhibit EE. Conclusions: The results obtained in the study indicate that lifestyle can have a real impact on the development of emotional eating problems. Individuals who are characterized by elevated BMI values, unhealthy diets, low rates of physical activity, who underestimate meal size in terms of weight and calories, and have high-stress feelings are more likely to develop emotional eating. These results also indicate that further research in this area should be undertaken to indicate whether the relationships shown can be generalized.

Social Norms Shift Preferences for Healthy and Unhealthy Foods

This research investigated whether people change their food preferences and eating behavior in response to health-based social norms. One hundred twenty participants rated a series of healthy and unhealthy food images. After each rating, participants sometimes viewed a rating that ostensibly represented the average rating of previous participants. In fact, these average ratings were manipulated to convey a particular social norm. Participants either saw average ratings that favored healthy foods, favored unhealthy foods, or did not see any average ratings. Participants then re-rated those same food images after approximately ten minutes and again three days later. After the norm manipulation, participants were given the chance to take as many M&Ms as they wanted. Participants exposed to a healthy social norm consistently reported lower preferences for unhealthy foods as compared to participants in the other two conditions. This preference difference persisted three days after the social norm manipulation. However, health-based social norm manipulations did not influence the amount of M&Ms participants took. Although health-based social norm manipulations can influence stated food preferences, in this case they did not influence subsequent eating behavior.

Negative affect reduces team awareness: the effects of mood and stress on computer-mediated team communication

OBJECTIVE

This article presents research on the effects of varying mood and stress states on within-team communication in a simulated crisis management environment, with a focus on the relationship between communication behaviors and team awareness.

BACKGROUND

Communication plays a critical role in team cognition along with cognitive factors such as attention, memory, and decision-making speed. Mood and stress are known to have interrelated effects on cognition at the individual level, but there is relatively little joint exploration of these factors in team communication in technologically complex environments.

METHOD

Dyadic communication behaviors in a distributed six-person crisis management simulation were analyzed in a factorial design for effects of two levels of mood (happy, sad) and the presence or absence of a time pressure stressor.

RESULTS

Time pressure and mood showed several specific impacts on communication behaviors. Communication quantity and efficiency increased under time pressure, though frequent requests for information were associated with poor performance. Teams in happy moods showed enhanced team awareness, as revealed by more anticipatory communication patterns and more detailed verbal responses to teammates than those in sad moods.

CONCLUSION

Results show that the attention-narrowing effects of mood and stress associated with individual cognitive functions demonstrate analogous impacts on team awareness and information-sharing behaviors and reveal a richer understanding of how team dynamics change under adverse conditions.

APPLICATION

Disentangling stress from mood affords the opportunity to target more specific interventions that better support team awareness and task performance.

[Brazilian validation of the Questionnaire of Smoking Urges]

This study was designed to validate the Brazilian version of the Questionnaire of Smoking Urges (QSU). The design was experimental, and participants were randomly distributed in groups of zero, 30, and 60 minutes of tobacco abstinence. The total sample was 201, with 67 males and 134 females, age ranging from 18 to 65 (M = 38.15). The instruments applied, besides QSU, were the Social and Demographic Data Form, Visual Analogue Scale to evaluate craving, Fagerström Test for Nicotine Dependence, and Beck Anxiety and Depression Inventories. Total variation in the two-factor factorial analysis was 57.76%, with a high inter-correlation (r = 0.726; p = 0.000). Factor 1 represented the anticipated relief of negative affect, nicotine abstinence symptoms, and urgent and overwhelming desire to smoke. Factor 2 represented the desire to smoke and the anticipation of smoking pleasure. Such results are contrary to those found in the original QSU. The Brazilian version proved to be an adequate and reliable instrument that can be used in both research and patient treatment.

Subjective and Reinforcing Effects of Smoking During Negative Mood Induction

Two notions strongly held by many smokers are that negative mood increases smoking behavior and that this increase is due to the ability of smoking to alleviate negative affect. This study used a modified mood induction procedure to examine both the impact of smoking on induced mood, as well as the effect of induced mood on actual smoking behavior. Forty-eight smokers were randomly assigned to a smoking or a water-drinking comparison group. Each participant attended 3 sessions during which 1 of 3 mood states (positive, negative, or neutral) was induced. Contrary to expectation, smoking did not attenuate negative affect. However, negative mood induction subsequently quickened latency to smoke and increased number of puffs consumed ad lib.