Reward-sensitive women overeat in a varied food environment, but only when hungry

In the current study we tried to elucidate the relationship between a personality trait, reward sensitivity, and an environmental variable; food variety. Based on scarce previous research we predicted that reward sensitivity would interact with variety in the food environment so that especially high reward sensitive individuals would be vulnerable to overeating in a varied food environment. It turned out that especially the high reward individuals did indeed overeat in a varied food environment. However, this was only the case for the highly reward sensitive individuals who experienced feelings of hunger. In other words, reward sensitivity does not affect food intake in varied food environments as long as feelings of hunger are not present. Future research should concentrate on identifying other factors that interact with the person and the environment to discourage reward-related overeating.

► Personality factors and the specific food environment influence eating behavior.
► Hypothesis: especially high reward sensitive individuals overeat in varied foods.
► Reward sensitivity does affect food intake in varied food environments.
► However, only when feelings of hunger are present.