Het Effect van Onbewust en Bewust Negatief Affect op Snackgedrag

Abstract

‘The Effect of Conscious and Subconscious Negative Affect on Snacking Behavior’ The mechanism underlying emotion induced eating was investigated in a research program with 64 female participants. In the literature on this subject, there are two different views. In the first view, emotional eating might be the result of the loss of self-control, and is an impulsive and unintentional reaction to negative emotions. According to the second view, emotional eating is considered to be a conscious act of affect regulation in stressful situations. These different views were investigated by inducing both conscious and subconscious emotions in the participants and measuring the influence of these emotions on ‘snacking’ behavior. The results of the research showed no significant difference in eating behavior between the subliminal, supraliminal and conscious groups, whatever the level of awareness of the negative affect. In consequence, it cannot be established for the participants in this investigation whether emotion induced eating is a result of loss of control or is a conscious form of affect regulation. In the evaluation some suggestions for improving the methodology are discussed.