Abstract
Ego depletion has been found to moderate the effect of implicit preferences on food consumption, such that implicit preferences predict consumption only under a depleted state. The present study tested how trait impulsivity impacts the effect of implicit preferences on food consumption in a depleted condition. Trait impulsivity was measured by means of self-report and a stop signal task. Results showed that both self-reported impulsivity and behavioral impulsivity moderated the ‘depletion and then eating according to implicit preferences’ effect, albeit in different ways. Participants high in self-reported impulsivity and low in behavioral impulsivity were more vulnerable to the effect of depletion on eating. The implications of these results for extant theories are discussed. Future research is needed to verify whether or not trait impulsivity is associated with vulnerability to depletion across different self-control domains.
Highlights
The abundance of high-calorie foods in modern society causes some people to consume in excess of their long-term health or weight-management goals (Novak and Brownell, 2011)
No significant differences were found between the two experimental conditions in implicit preferences toward chocolate (M = 0.26, SD = 0.30 vs. M = 0.18, SD = 0.40, t(93) = –1.305, p = 0.195), self-reported impulsivity (M = 2.27, SD = 0.31 vs. M = 2.18, SD = 0.31, t(93) = –1.367, p = 0.175), or response inhibition (M = 231.67, SD = 50.06 vs. M = 236.39, SD = 44.63, t(93) = 0.484, p = 0.629)
Probing the interaction revealed a single significant simple slope (β = 0.627, p = 0.007), reflecting that implicit preferences were positively associated with food consumption only among individuals high in self-reported impulsivity under the depletion condition
Summary
The abundance of high-calorie foods in modern society causes some people to consume in excess of their long-term health or weight-management goals (Novak and Brownell, 2011). The extent to which implicit measures predict eating behavior depends on multiple situational (e.g., ego depletion) and dispositional moderators (e.g., trait self-control). These moderators are consistent with the dual-systems perspective (Friese et al, 2008a). High trait self-control was found to attenuate the effect of ego depletion on eating after accounting for implicit preferences toward specific food (Wang et al, 2015). The effect of implicit preferences on food consumption under a depleted condition existed only in individuals with high trait impulsivity
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