Laifer, Alexandra (9/11) To eat and to like: the role of unconscious affect, self-regulation, and motivation in consumption behavior and preferences (Gary Kose, Ph.D.; Philip Wong, Ph.D.; Paul Ramirez, Ph.D.)
The current study explored the relative influence of regulatory disposition and internal motivation on consumption behavior within the context of subliminal presentation of information aimed at eliciting an unconscious affective response. One hundred forty-three participants at a large, urban university completed self-report measures to determine their pre-existing level of hunger (internal motivation) and regulatory disposition (action- versus state-orientation; Kuhl, 1981) and were assigned to one of two priming conditions (positive or negative). They were primed with neutral faces at baseline, then offered a novel food to eat and rate; they were primed a second time with affect faces and offered food again. Results indicated that hunger acted separately in determining consumption behavior between groups, irrespective of regulatory disposition or unconscious affective state, but did not elicit significant changes in eating from baseline within groups. Regulatory disposition and unconscious affective state had a negative effect on eating, though only among those who were state-oriented and primed with positive affect. Both state- and action-oriented individuals in each of the priming conditions, some of whom were hungry while others were not, showed decreases in rating of the food following the priming. All of these results suggested that the activation of an unconscious affective state may lead people to behave in unexpected ways and raises additional questions about the complex nature of hunger and eating, the mechanism of unconscious affective priming, the subtle influence of different emotions within a valence category, the role of intuitive affect regulation, and aspects of situation and context that may impact subsequent judgments and behavior.
