title: Eating on impulse: Implicit attitudes, self-regulatory resources, and trait self-control as determinants of food consumption.
abstract: Self-regulatory resources and trait self-control have been found to moderate the impulse-behavior relationship. The current study investigated whether the interaction of self-regulatory resources and trait self-control moderates the association between implicit attitudes and food consumption. One hundred twenty female participants were randomly assigned to either a depletion condition in which their self-regulatory resources were reduced or a no-depletion condition. Participants' implicit attitudes for chocolate were measured with the Single Category Implicit Association Test and self-report measures of trait self-control were collected. The dependent variable was chocolate consumption in an ostensible taste and rate task. Implicit attitudes predicted chocolate consumption in depleted participants but not in non-depleted participants. However, this predictive power of implicit attitudes on eating in depleted condition disappeared in participants with high trait self-control. Thus, trait self-control and self-regulatory resources interact to moderate the prediction of implicit attitude on eating behavior. Results suggest that high trait self-control buffers the effect of self-regulatory depletion on impulsive eating.
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology and Cognitive Science, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200062, China. Electronic address: wangyan@psy.ecnu.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Yan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology and Cognitive Science, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200062, China.
authors.forename: Lei
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology and Cognitive Science, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200062, China.
authors.forename: Xianghua
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Cui
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology and Cognitive Science, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200062, China.
authors.forename: Yuan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Fang
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology and Cognitive Science, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200062, China.
authors.forename: Qianqiu
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology and Cognitive Science, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200062, China.
authors.forename: Ya
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology and Cognitive Science, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200062, China.
authors.forename: Yao
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Qiang
mesh_terms: D001290:Attitude; D002099:Cacao; D004435:Eating / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007175:Impulsive Behavior; D057566:Self Report; D000068356:Self-Control / Q000523:psychology*; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Ego depletion; Food consumption; Implicit attitudes; Self-regulatory resources; Trait self-control