De functionaliteit van emotioneel eten De invloed van de emotieregulatiestijlen herwaardering en onderdrukking op de mogelijkheid tot het uitoefenen van zelfcontrole
Summary
Recent findings have shown that with applying 2 emotion regulation strategies, respectively suppression and reappraisal, people consumed more food after suppressing their emotions, than after applying cognitive reappraisal of the emotional situation. Also, people have to apply more self-control when suppressing their emotions. Recent findings show that self-control derives from what is in fact a limited resource, of which the capacity is worn out after an act of self-control. It has also been hypothesized that this resource could be the amount of glucose available. The current study investigates the link between depletion of this limited resource, and consequently, the functionality of eating after an emotional situation, by which one would be able to refuel this resource. To investigate this, 66 women were instructed to apply one of the emotion regulation strategies mentioned above, while watching an emotional film clip. Their performance on the Stroop task was measured subsequently, and again after a 20 minute break, to test how long this potential depletion would last. Results show that the regulation strategy applied had no influence on depletion, participants in each cell were equally depleted. After the break, none of the participants in each condition were still depleted. Based on these findings it can be concluded that emotion regulation has little effect on self control and depletion. Also it appears that somehow, the ability to apply self-control recovers itself after a certain period of time. Possible explanations and suggestions for future research are discussed.