title: Early associations with food in anorexia nervosa patients and obese people assessed in the affective priming paradigm.
abstract: Two experiments are reported that used the affective priming paradigm (Fazio, R. H., Sanbonmatsu, D. M., Powell, M. C., & Kardess, F. R. (1986). On the automatic activation of attitudes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 50, 229-238) to uncover associations with food at a relatively automatic level. Experiment 1 tested the hypothesis that anorexia nervosa (AN; n=22) patients would show less sensitivity to the palatability of foods than unrestrained lean controls (n=27). Results indeed suggested that AN patients did not display a liking of palatable foods over unpalatable foods, whereas unrestrained controls did. Experiment 2 tested the hypothesis that obese people (n=27) would show more sensitivity to the palatability of (high-fat) palatable foods than unrestrained lean controls (n=27) would. However, results suggested that the priming effect was based on health concerns, in that participants showed a preference for low-fat palatable foods over high-fat palatable foods. Average speed of responding and context are discussed as variables influencing the affective priming effect. Taken together, results suggest that food evaluations at a relatively automatic level are controlled by an interaction between participant characteristics, stimuli characteristics, and the specific context.
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Psychology (UNS 40), Experimental Psychology (FdP), Maastricht University, P.O. Box 616, 6200 MD Maastricht, The Netherlands. a.roefs@psychology.unimaas.nl
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Roefs
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Stapert
authors.forename: L A S
authors.initials: LA
authors.lastname: Isabella
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Wolters
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Wojciechowski
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Jansen
mesh_terms: D000339:Affect; D000856:Anorexia Nervosa / Q000523:psychology*; D001244:Association; D001290:Attitude; D015992:Body Mass Index; D004041:Dietary Fats; D005260:Female; D005518:Food Preferences; D006801:Humans; D009765:Obesity / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology*; D011581:Psychological Tests
chemical_list: D004041:Dietary Fats