Predictors of state-based changes in wanting and liking

Abstract

People report wanting food when they are hungry, and on eating it they typically report liking the experience. After eating, both wanting and liking decline, but wanting declines to a greater extent, which we term the ‘affective discrepancy effect’. In this study we examine the predictors - state, sensory and memory-based - of these affective changes. Hungry participants undertook three tasks: (1) written recollections of what certain foods are like to eat; (2) ratings of wanting and expected flavour liking and fillingness when looking at snacks, and ratings of food and flavour liking when eating them; (3) ratings of bodily state. These tasks were then repeated after lunch. State-based changes in food liking were best predicted by changes in flavour liking. For state-based change in wanting, memory-based information about flavour liking and fillingness from tasks (1) and (2) were all significant predictors. For recollections about eating (task 1), mentions of food fillingness significantly increased pre-to post-lunch and this was the best predictor of the affective discrepancy effect. Recollections of food fillingness are state-dependent, and can arise unbidden (i.e., such recollective content was unprompted). This may reflect one way that memory may selectively influence wanting, and hence whether food intake is initiated or not.