Guilty pleasures. Implicit preferences for high calorie food in restrained eating

In two studies, it was examined whether dietary restraint is associated with stronger positive implicit attitudes toward high calorie food. This hypothesis was tested using unipolar IAT variants that allowed us to separately measure and examine positive and negative implicit associations with high calorie food. In both studies, results showed that restrained eaters do not differ from unrestrained eaters with respect to negative implicit associations with high calorie food. However, dietary restraint does influence the strength of positive implicit associations with high calorie food: When positive implicit associations with high calorie food were measured relative to low calorie food, restrained and unrestrained eaters did not differ with respect to their implicit preferences for high versus low calorie food. In contrast, when positive implicit associations with high calorie food were assessed using non-relative IAT variants, restrained eaters showed stronger positive implicit associations with high calorie food than unrestrained eaters. Thus, restrained eaters show stronger implicit liking for high calorie food compared to unrestrained eaters.