Abstract
Background
Individuals who engage in restrained eating are often torn between eating enjoyment and weight control. Recent research found visual attention to threat varied according to motivation, and people with ambivalent motivation about threat showed greater anxiety.
Methods
A total number of 225 individuals high in restrained eating completed a passive viewing task in which they were presented with image pairs of high calorie food and neutral objects while their eye movements were tracked. Participants also rated their motivation to look towards and away from food images and completed measures of mood and thought-shape fusion.
Results
Two-thirds of participants reported strong motivation to look at food images, and the rest were highly motivated to avoid, were indifferent, or were ambivalent. Visual attention to food images varied according to motivation. Ambivalent individuals had higher thought-shape fusion scores and were more restrained in their eating than engagers and indifferent individuals.
Conclusions
These findings suggest that motivation to attend to and avoid food images are important factors to study, as they are associated with attentional biases and eating pathology. Clinical implications are also discussed.
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Data Availability
The data that support the findings of this study are openly available in Mendeley Data at https://data.mendeley.com/datasets/8t3hzynxss, reference number: https://doi.org/10.17632/8t3hzynxss.1.
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Funding
This research was supported by Social Sciences and Humanity Research Council of Canada awarded to C.P. (SSHRC Insight Grant, The persistence of unwanted thoughts). We confirm the funding source was not involved in any part of this study.
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All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation was performed by M.X. Data collection and analysis were performed by M.X. and K.R. The first draft of the manuscript was written by M.X. and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Xu, M., Rowe, K. & Purdon, C. To Approach or to Avoid: The Role of Ambivalent Motivation Towards High Calorie Food Images in Restrained Eaters. Cogn Ther Res 47, 669–680 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10608-023-10374-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10608-023-10374-9