Inhibitory self-control moderates the effect of modified implicit food evaluations on snack intake

Abstract

Background: This study examined whether inhibitory self-control moderated the effects of a modified implicit association test (IAT) on implicit evaluations of unhealthy snack food and subsequent consumption. Methods: 148 women completed a 2 (intervention condition: positive, negative) x 2 (time: pre-, post-training assessment) mixed factorial design experiment. The intervention trained participants to pair unhealthy food stimuli with either positive or negative stimuli. Measures included IATs assessing implicit unhealthy food evaluations, a taste-test assessing unhealthy snack consumption, and an inhibitory self-control scale. Findings: Implicit evaluations of unhealthy food became more negative following the food negative pairing intervention; however, there was no corresponding change in the food positive condition. The effect of training on snack consumption was moderated by inhibitory self-control: only participants low in inhibitory self-control showed lower snack intake following the food negative training. Discussion: Findings are consistent with dual-process models, which predict that self-control capacity renders impulses less influential on behaviour. Furthermore, they suggest that retraining implicit food evaluations could reduce unhealthy eating, particularly among individuals with low inhibitory self-control.