Emotions and eating - week/lecture 9 - Virtual tutorial 4 Flashcards
study in question
Lattimore, P., & Maxwell, L. (2004). Cognitive load, stress, and disinhibited eating. Eating Behaviors, 5(4), 315-324.
- What was the primary aim of the study?
a. To see if disinhibition is due to the effects of ego-threatening stimuli or to a general effect of limited cognitive capacity.
- What were the hypotheses and how were they tested?
a. restrained eaters would eat more than unrestrained eaters following high cognitive load only when it involves processing of ego-threat information;
b. high cognitive load tasks would produce more anxiety than low cognitive load;
c. as a manipulation check of difficulty, high cognitive load would produce longer Stroop task response times compared to low cognitive load.
- Why were reaction time data ‘trimmed’ prior to analysis?
a. To account for outliers.
- This study employed a between-subjects design. What are the adv and limitations of this approach?
a. Advantages: reduces problems associated with non-completion of conditions
b. Difficulties with matching ppts between conditions; unexplained variance due to individual differences; must account for these difference either by matching or controlling for within data analyses
- 5 different foods varying in sensory qualities and macronutrient composition were provided after the tasks. How was intake assessed?
a. Taste test; recorded total weight of foods consumed (5 foods, combined weight).
- What are the 2 preconditions of escape theory?
a. Distress contingent upon ego-threat, and disinhibition should occur when self-awareness is low
- Was escape theory supported by the data? What evidence was used to support this conclusion?
a. Partially
b. Hyp 1 and 3 supported, provided some support for the preconditions of escape theory
c. Hyp 2 not fully supported. Escape theory states disinhibition should be contingent upon ET being anxiety provoking, but in this study disinhibition occurred without anxiety.
- Was the limited cognitive capacity hypothesis supported? Again, what was the evidence?
a. There was some evidence to support the limited capacity hypothesis. More was consumed in conditions requiring memorisation of ET rather than colour couns (there is evidence that emotional words capture attentional resources, so such tasks are more demanding than neutral). This also provides support for escape theory.
- What were the limitations of the study?
a. The manipulation may not have worked as intended so can not be sure of the mechanism at play.
- What questions remain to be answered, and how might they be addressed?
a. The possibility that processing of non-threatening emotional stimuli (e.g. positive emotions), if sufficiently demanding, could trigger disinhibition. Should be repeated with both conditions.
