BASIC AND APPLIED SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY, 27(4), 353–360
Copyright © 2005, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
AMBIVALENCE
URLAND
AND ITO
AND DIETARY RESTRAINT
Have Your Cake and Hate It, Too: Ambivalent Food
Attitudes Are Associated With Dietary Restraint
Geoffrey R. Urland and Tiffany A. Ito
University of Colorado
The extent to which foods differ in their likelihood of eliciting ambivalent attitudes and the effect
of dietary restraint on these attitudes was investigated. Positive and negative attitudes toward 5
categories of food were collected from 82 female undergraduates. Two measures of restrained
eating, the Restraint Scale and the Drive for Thinness subscale of the EDI–2, were also collected.
Ambivalence scores computed from the separate positive and negative evaluations were higher
on average for desserts and candies, high-sugar foods, and high-carbohydrate foods than for fruits
and vegetables and meats. In addition, food attitudes were more ambivalent on average for restrained eaters, with ambivalence increasing as a function of restraint for high-fat and high-carbohydrate foods in particular. By contrast, dietary restraint was associated with less ambivalence toward fruits and vegetables. Restrained eating also seemed to affect the negative attitude
component more than the positive component. These latter effects suggest the importance of attitudes toward food in understanding restrained eating and its effect on behavior.
Dietary restraint, viewed as the chronic limitation of food intake to avoid becoming fat, has striking effects on eating behavior. Restrained eaters, for instance, consistently consume
more of a high-calorie food following a food preload than do
nonrestrained eaters (Heatherton, Polivy, & Herman, 1990),
and dietary restraint has been postulated as a cause of binge
eating and bulimia (Polivy & Herman, 1985, 2002; Stice,
Shaw, & Nemeroff, 1998; Tuschl, 1990). There are also a
range of cognitive–behavioral correlates of dietary restraint,
including improved memory for and greater attention to forbidden foods (Israeli & Stewart, 2001; Knight & Boland,
1989).
Of interest, although dietary restraint is frequently conceptualized as an alteration in attitudes about food and eating, relatively little attention has been paid to the relationship
of dietary restraint and food-related attitudes. This omission
is particularly striking when dietary restraint is considered in
conjunction with attitudinal ambivalence. The latter is commonly construed as “the simultaneous existence of positive
and negative evaluations of an attitude object” (Conner &
Sparks, 2002). The bivalent behavioral tendencies of
disinhibited (approach) and controlled (avoidant) eating that
characterize restrained eaters raise the question of whether
Requests for reprints should be sent to Tiffany Ito, Department of Psychology, 345 UCB, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309–0345.
E-mail: [email protected]
restrained eaters’ attitudes toward food are similarly bivalent.
The implications that ambivalent attitudes have for behavior,
such as the deeper processing of attitude-relevant information (Jonas, Diehl, & Bromer, 1997; Maio, Bell, & Esses,
1996), highlight the relevance of examining this issue.
ATTITUDINAL AMBIVALENCE
Although ambivalence has not been investigated with respect
to restrained eating to our knowledge, there is evidence of
ambivalence in attitudes toward eating behaviors among unselected samples. Conner and colleagues found that different
types of eating behaviors vary in the amount of ambivalence
they elicit, with higher levels of ambivalence associated with
behaviors such as reducing fat intake that are both positive in
the long term but unpleasant to follow through on in the short
term (Conner, Povey, Sparks, James, & Shepard, 1998). Ambivalence has also been shown to attenuate the relationship
between attitudes toward a particular diet (e.g., vegetarianism) and intentions to follow it (Povey, Wellens, & Conner
(2001). In addition, greater ambivalence has been found toward foods perceived as forbidden (e.g., cake, pie) than allowed (e.g., apples, spinach; Gattellari & Huon, 1997) and
hunger has been associated with decreased ambivalence toward food (Lozano, Crites, & Aikman, 1999).
354
URLAND AND ITO
As can been seen, different foods and eating-related behaviors food have been associated with ambivalence, and the
bivalent action tendencies toward food shown by restrained
eaters suggests that their attitudes toward food may be especially ambivalent. It is not clear, however, whether restrained
eaters should show greater ambivalence to all foods, or only
to certain foods. Selective effects are suggested by findings
that eating-disordered patients and those watching their diets
frequently make distinctions that have important behavioral
implications among categories of food (Knight & Boland,
1989; Drewnoski, 1989). One frequent classification is between “forbidden” and “allowed” foods (Francis, Stewart, &
Hounsell, 1997; Knight & Boland, 1989), but finer nutritional distinctions are also made. Eating-disordered patients,
for instance, have been shown to selectively avoid foods high
in fats and carbohydrates (Beumont, Chambers, Rouse, &
Abraham, 1981; Kales, 1990; Russell, 1979). Of importance,
food classifications have been examined in a primarily descriptive way, with no assessment of possible underlying attitudinal differences.
Based on their past identification as foods avoided by eating-disordered patients, these issues were examined by collecting responses to the categories of high-fat and high-carbohydrate foods. A category of desserts and candies was also
included because they often rank highly among forbidden
foods (Knight & Boland, 1989). Finally, we also collected responses to fruits and vegetables because they appear commonly among allowed foods, and to meats because they are
often associated with more middling reactions (Knight &
Boland, 1989). This range of food categories allows us to assess whether greater ambivalence is seen in general toward
high-fat foods, high-carbohydrate foods, and desserts and
candies as compared to fruits and vegetables and meats, and
whether this is moderated by dietary restraint, with particularly high ambivalence toward these foods among restrained
eaters.
These hypotheses were examined by collecting separate
ratings of positive and negative evaluations to pictures of
foods. The separate positivity and negativity ratings were
then used to compute ambivalence levels. This not only provides desirable psychometric properties (discussed later) but
also allows us to examine the source of any observed ambivalence differences as a function of restrained eating.
METHODS
Participants
Eighty-four women (M age = 19 years, 90% Caucasian) participated in this experiment in partial fulfillment of an introductory psychology research requirement. Two participants
did not complete the measures of dietary restraint, so the data
from 82 participants were available for the complete set of
statistical analyses.
Food Stimuli
The 70 food pictures used to elicit attitudes were culled from
various clipart collections on CD-ROM and the Internet.
These pictures were divided into five distinct categories of
food (high fat, high carbohydrate, desserts and candies, fruits
and vegetables, and meats) that each contained 14 exemplars.
For example, the high-carbohydrates category contained pictures of bagels, soft pretzels, biscuits, croissants, baguettes,
sliced breads, and pastas. Likewise, the fruits and vegetables
category included oranges, cherries, salad greens, bell peppers, kiwi fruit, strawberries, bananas, mushrooms, corn, carrots, and asparagus.
Measures of Dietary Restraint
Two measures were used to assess dietary restraint. First, we
utilized the Restraint Scale (RS), which contains 10 questions dealing with specific behaviors related to restrained eating, as well as patterns and amounts of weight gain and loss
(e.g., thinking about food, impulsive eating, dieting behavior; Herman & Polivy, 1980). The second measure was the
Drive for Thinness (DT) subscale of the Eating Disorder Inventory–2 (EDI–2) which contains seven items dealing with
more emotional responses to eating, dieting, or gaining
weight (Garner, 1990).
Although these two scales purport to measure similar constructs, the fact that one scale concentrates on concrete behaviors while the other measures general emotions could
lead to different associations with overall food attitudes. According to the tripartite model of attitudes, affect and behavior are two of the distinct components that comprise an attitude (Eagly & Chaiken, 1998). These two components can be
inconsistent (McGregor, Newby-Clark, & Zanna, 1999),
which could lead to the possibility of these two measures of
dietary restraint relating differently to food attitudes.
Attitude Measures
Two different types of attitude ratings of the food stimuli
were collected on 8-point scales: unipolar positivity (ranging
from “no positive attitude” to “extremely positive”) and unipolar negativity (ranging from “no negative attitude” to “extremely negative”). Most researchers of ambivalence utilize
either open-ended measures of ambivalence (e.g., Conner et
al., 2002) or separate positive and negative attitude scales
that are then combined in a formula to provide an attitude
score (e.g., Thompson, Zanna, & Griffin, 1995). We eschewed the open-ended approach due to the large volume of
attitude objects being assessed. And, although it seems plausible to simply ask participants about their levels of ambivalence toward an object, this is less desirable from a measurement perspective. Participants could be reporting on their
ideas about their attitudes rather than the attitudes themselves
(cf. Nisbett & Wilson, 1977). In addition, simple bipolar
AMBIVALENCE AND DIETARY RESTRAINT
scales of attitudes that range from “good” on one pole to
“bad” on the other pole are also undesirable. A response at
the middle of the scale can be construed as either an ambivalent attitude or as a nonattitude. Finally, separately assessing
positivity and negativity allows us to assess the relative contribution of differences in positivity and negativity to any observed ambivalence. For these reasons we utilized the unipolar scales approach.
Procedure
Participants completed the experiment in groups of one to six.
On entering the laboratory, they were greeted by a female experimenter. After completing a consent form and a brief demographic questionnaire (which included one question each on
height and weight), participants were conducted to individual
computer rooms where they completed the remainder of the
experiment. They first completed one of the two unipolar attitude measures (order of the unipolar measures was counterbalanced across participants). Food stimuli were presented in a
random order on an Apple iMac computer and appeared on the
screen for 3,000 msec. To ensure that the measures were unambiguous and that we were not artificially attenuating the correlation between positivity and negativity (Russell & Carroll,
1999), unipolar attitudes were assessed in two steps. For example, for the positive unipolar ratings, participants were first
asked to indicate if they held any positive evaluation of the
food at all. If so, they were then directed to press a number key
from one to seven on the computer keyboard that corresponded
with the degree of their positive attitude. If they felt no positive
attitude toward that food, they proceeded to the next picture,
and a score of zero was recorded in their data file.1 After they
pressed the appropriate number on the keypad to indicate the
extent of their positive attitude, the next picture appeared. Participants completed the Need for Cognition scale (Cacioppo &
Petty, 1982) and the Crowne Marlowe Social Desirability
scale (Crowne & Marlowe, 1964) as filler material between
the positivity and negativity ratings. After completion of the
second set of ratings, participants completed the restrained
eating questionnaires.
RESULTS
355
the values for each of the scale’s questions. Although this is
the accepted practice for the RS, Garner (1990) recommended a slightly different scoring system for the DT in the
EDI–2 manual. In his conception, the three “unsymptomatic”
answers (“Never,” “Rarely,” and “Sometimes”) should all be
given a score of zero, while the symptomatic values (“Often,”
“Usually,” and “Always”) should be scored as one, two, and
three, respectively. This scoring system was not followed for
statistical, theoretical, and empirical reasons. Restricting the
range of the scale decreases its variability, decreasing statistical power. In addition, it seems likely that there is a real psychological difference between an answer of “Never” and
“Sometimes.” Garner’s (1990) guidelines also are geared toward clinical assessment of eating disorders, while in this
study we were also interested in subclinical restrained eaters.
Finally, scoring the EDI–2 and its subscales on a continuous
scale has been shown to provide similar, and in some cases
more detailed, results than the recommended system (Hart &
Ollendick, 1985; Thompson, Berg, & Shatford, 1987).
Means and standard deviations for both the RS
(Chronbach’s α = .85) and DT (Chronbach’s α = .94) scales
are presented in Table 1. As can be seen by the standard deviations, scores for both scales had a large distribution. In fact,
for the DT, scores ranged from the minimum to the maximum
possible score.
A Body Mass Index (BMI) score was also computed from
the participants’ self-reported height and weight values as
weight(kg)/height(m2). BMI values were compared to the
clinical guidelines recommended by the National Heart,
Lung, and Blood Institute (1998). Although BMI scores
ranged from underweight to obese, the mean BMI (M = 21.7)
falls within the normal weight classification (see Table 1).
The RS and DT were highly correlated, r = .88, p < .0001,
which was slightly higher than previous studies have reported (Rosen, Silberg, & Gross, 1988). RS was also significantly correlated with BMI, r = .27, p < .05, but the DT was
not, r = .13.
Effects of Food Type on Ambivalence
To examine whether ambivalence differed as a function of the
type of food being evaluated, we computed ambivalence
scores from the positive (P) and negative (N) unipolar attitude
scales using an adaptation of the formula recommended by
Measures of Restrained Eating and Body Mass
We first examined restrained eating scores to verify that we
had sufficient variability in our sample to examine effects of
interest. Scores on the RS and DT were obtained by summing
TABLE 1
Means and Standard Deviations for Dietary
Restraint and Body Mass Index
Measure
1It
is possible that some participants might have used this method to get
through the experiment quickly by pressing “no attitude” for all responses.
However, if this was true of a majority of participants, then one would expect
that all unipolar ratings would not be significantly different than zero. This
was not the case. Across all unipolar ratings, the mean rating (2.57) was significantly different than zero, F(1, 80) = 1116.2, p < .0001.
Restraint scale
DTn (EDI-2)
BMI
M
SD
13.75
24.37
21.66
6.56
10.59
2.54
Note. Possible scores on the Restraint Scale range from 0 to 45 and DT
from 0 to 42. SD = standard deviation.
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URLAND AND ITO
TABLE 2
Mean Ambivalence as a Function of Food Type
High Fats
Computed
Ambivalence
Note.
2.66a
(1.16)
High Carbohydrates
2.64a
(1.19)
Desserts and Candies
2.91b
(1.41)
Fruits and Vegetables
1.22c
(0.84)
Meats
2.00d
(1.04)
Scale range = 0–10.5. Means that are significantly different at p < .05 are denoted with a different subscript. Standard deviations are parentheses.
Thompson et al. (1995): [(P + N) /2] – |P – N| + 3.5. This formula essentially looks at the relationship between the intensity
(i.e., the computed sum) and the similarity (i.e., the computed
difference) of the unipolar measures. The greater the intensity
or the greater the similarity, the higher the ambivalence score.
The addition of 3.5 recenters the ambivalence scores so that no
ambivalence (i.e., a rating of seven on one measure and zero on
the other) is scored as zero. The highest possible ambivalence
score is 10.5 and occurs when an attitude object is rated as a 7
on both the positive and negative scales. This formula has several properties desirable to the measurement of ambivalence
(Breckler, 1994). When the two ratings are equal, ambivalence
increases as both ratings increase (i.e., greater intensity leads
to greater ambivalence). In addition, when the two ratings are
unequal and the smaller rating is held constant, increasing the
larger rating decreases the ambivalence scores and likewise,
when the larger rating is held constant, increasing the smaller
rating increases the ambivalence score (i.e., similarity is positively related to ambivalence).
Means and standard deviations for the computed ambivalence scores for the five types of foods are presented in Table
2. Our first hypothesis was confirmed by the finding that
high-fats (α = .78), high-carbohydrates (α = .87), and desserts and candies (α = .88), were all regarded significantly
more ambivalently than fruits and vegetables (α = .87) or
meats (α = .80; all mean comparisons p < .05). Desserts and
candies also elicited more ambivalence than high-fat or
high-carbohydrate foods (both ps < .05), while the latter two
categories did not differ (F < 1).
First, a between-subjects analysis of participants’ mean
ambivalence ratings across all types of foods was conducted
to assess the effects of dietary restraint on overall levels of
ambivalence. There was a significant effect of dietary restraint on computed ambivalence as measured by RS, F(1,
80) = 3.96, p < .05, and a marginal effect for DT, F(1, 80) =
3.28, p = .07, such that higher scores on the measures of dietary restraint were associated with more ambivalent attitudes across all types of foods.
The relationship between ambivalence and restrained eating was further examined by analyzing each category of food
individually. Figure 1 plots the relation between restrained
eating and ambivalence for each food type for different levels
of dietary restraint (as shown later, the two different measures of restraint have virtually identical relationships to the
different food types, so only the effect of RS on ambivalence
toward different food types is plotted). Restrained eating
moderated ambivalence toward fatty and high-carbohydrate
foods. For both classes of food, greater ambivalence was associated with greater dietary restraint as measured on both
the RS, Fs(1, 80) = 7.85 and 10.19, ps < .01, respectively, and
DT, Fs(1, 80) = 8.25 and 7.62, ps < .01. The same pattern was
obtained for desserts and candies, but did not reach conventional levels of significance for either RS, F(1, 80) = 2.65, p <
.11, or DT, F(1, 80) = 2.53, p < .12.
There was also an unpredicted significant effect of restrained eating on attitudes toward fruits and vegetables that
was opposite in direction to the previous results. Across both
RS and DT, increases in restrained eating were related to less
Effects of Restrained Eating on Ambivalence
Under the framework of the general linear model, several different tests were conducted to examine the effects of restrained eating on levels of ambivalence toward food. Analyses were conducted separately for the two measures of
dietary restraint. To examine the degree to which food attitudes were also influenced by objective body size, BMI was
included as a predictor in all analyses. Instead of performing
a median split on the measures of restraint, the two scales
were treated as continuous variables, which, assuming a linear relationship between dietary restraint and ambivalence,
provides greater statistical power.2
2Analyses conducted using a median split for both DT and RS yielded a
similar pattern of results.
FIGURE 1 Effect of dietary restraint (as measured by the Restraint Scale) on attitudes toward each of the five categories of food.
AMBIVALENCE AND DIETARY RESTRAINT
ambivalent attitudes toward fruits and vegetables, Fs(1, 80) =
4.96 and 5.50, respectively, ps < .05. Dietary restraint did not
affect attitudinal ambivalence toward meats.
Effects of Restrained Eating on Positivity
and Negativity
To more fully understand why restrained eaters are more ambivalent to foods in general, and certain foods in particular,
the effect of dietary restraint on each unipolar evaluation
component was assessed. Because ambivalence is a product
of both the positive and negative evaluations of an object,
such analyses allow us to assess whether the effects of restrained eating are due to differences in levels of positivity,
negativity, or both. Take the case of fatty foods, where ambivalence increased as a function of dietary restraint. We do not
know if this occurs because (a) restrained and nonrestrained
eaters share similarly high positive evaluations toward fatty
foods while restrained eaters have more negative evaluations
than nonrestrained eaters, (b) the two groups share similarly
high negative evaluations toward fatty foods while restrained
eaters have more positive evaluations than nonrestrained eaters, or (c) restrained eaters have both more positive and negative evaluations than nonrestrained eaters. In addition, it is
possible that the nature of these effects differ depending on
food type. This might particularly be the case for fruits and
vegetables, which showed a negative relationship to dietary
restraint.
To assess whether differences in levels of positivity,
negativity, or both were contributing to the effects of restrained eating on ambivalence, regression analyses were
conducted on the separate positive and negative evaluations.
Specifically, separate regression analyses were performed in
which each evaluative component was predicted by restraint
scores. In each case, the other evaluative component was also
included in the analysis.3 These analyses were performed
separately for each class of food.
Starting first with level of negativity, increased dietary
restraint, as measured by RS and the DT, significantly predicted more negative attitudes toward high-fat foods,
high-carbohydrate foods, desserts and candies, and meats,
all Fs(1, 80) > 7, all ps < .01, controlling for positive attitudes. However, neither dietary restraint scale predicted
negative attitudes toward fruits and vegetables, Fs(1, 80) <
1.2, p > .2.
3A very similar pattern emerged when we looked at the simple correlations between the evaluative components and the food types. The only inconsistencies across both restraint measures between the simple analysis
and the regressions controlling for the opposite evaluation were a significant
negative correlation between high carbohydrate foods and positivity (both rs
> –.23, ps < .04) and a significant negative correlation between fruits and
vegetables and negativity (RS: r = –.25, p < .025; DT: r = –.20, p < .07).
357
Although restrained eating predicted negative evaluations
across four classes of foods, it was a weaker predictor of positive evaluations. In fact, the only relationship found was between dietary restraint and positivity toward fruits and vegetables, such that greater restraint on both the RS and the DT
was associated with increased positivity, F(1, 80) = 3.4, p <
.07 and F(1, 80) = 5.7, p < .02, respectively, when controlling
for negative attitudes.
In sum, the differences in attitudes toward high-fat foods,
high-carbohydrate foods, and desserts and candies as a function of dietary restraint appears to be driven primarily by
higher levels of negativity toward these foods among restrained eaters. By contrast, attitudes toward fruits and vegetables are characterized by greater positivity among restrained eaters.
DISCUSSION
Results of this study were consistent with the predicted effects. First, some types of foods (in this case, high-fat foods,
high-carbohydrate foods, and desserts and candies) consistently elicited greater levels of ambivalence across all participants. This finding adds to the sparse literature on target effects in food ambivalence (Conner & Sparks, 2002), which
previously concentrated on attitudes toward eating behaviors
rather than toward classes of actual foods. Of greater interest,
we found that restrained eaters (whether measured by the RS
or DT) generally report more ambivalent attitudes to the
foods we assessed, and that this effect varies as a function of
food type; restrained eaters possess especially ambivalent attitudes to high-fat and high-carbohydrate foods (and show a
trend for more ambivalence toward desserts and candies).
They also express especially unambivalent attitudes to fruits
and vegetables.
Moderation of the dietary restraint-ambivalence relation
as a function of food type highlights the benefits, when conducting food and attitude research, of assessing attitudes toward several different types of foods. Classification of foods
into discrete categories has been repeatedly observed among
restrained eaters and other eating-disordered patients. These
classifications have important behavioral implications—subjective construal of a food as forbidden but not its objective
caloric content affects disinhibited eating (Knight & Boland,
1989). Although these behavioral outcomes are known, there
has been little effort to understand the basis by which these
classifications are made. These results show that attitudinal
ambivalence differentiates among classes of food with importantly different behavioral implications. In addition, analyses of the separate positive and negative evaluative components revealed that the greater levels of ambivalence in
restrained eaters toward high-fat foods, high-carbohydrate
foods, and desserts and candies is due to increased negativity,
and not decreased positivity, relative to nonrestrained eaters.
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URLAND AND ITO
This means that while restrained eaters like these foods just
as much as unrestrained eaters, they are more focused on the
foods’ negative qualities than nonrestrained eaters are. This
relationship reverses for fruits and vegetables. In this case,
restrained eaters show similar levels of negativity, but have
greater positivity than unrestrained eaters.
The finding of decreased ambivalence and greater
positivity toward fruits and vegetables as a function of restrained eating was not predicted, but may relate to previously obtained relationships between dietary restraint and
vegetarianism in women (Gilbody, Kirk, & Hill, 1999) as
well as an overrepresentation of vegetarians in samples of individuals with clinical eating disorders (Dally, Gomez, &
Issacs, 1979; Kadambari, Gowers, & Crisp, 1986). Diets
high in fruits and vegetables may be seen as more filling and
less likely to contribute to weight gain, therefore becoming
more attractive to those higher in dietary restraint (Sullivan &
Damani, 2000). It is also interesting that while restrained eating did not moderate ambivalence toward meats, amount of
negativity toward meats was significantly predicted by restraint scores.
It is also noteworthy that we only saw a relationship between attitudinal ambivalence and dietary restraint and found
no evidence of a relationship between attitudinal ambivalence and BMI. Thus, evaluations toward foods seem to be
determined more strongly by subjective construals of one’s
relationship with food and not with more objective measures
of body size. Moreover, for the most part, the relations we obtained were significant for dietary restraint as defined both
behaviorally (RS) and more emotionally (DT).
Implications
Perhaps one of the most important questions raised by this research concerns the causal relationship between restrained
eating and attitudinal ambivalence. We acknowledge that answers to this question are somewhat speculative, given the
correlational nature of the research, but we suspect that the
relationship between ambivalent attitudes and dietary restraint is bidirectional or iterative. First, dietary restraint may
alter attitudes toward foods, possibly by changing behavioral
motivations (Festinger, 1957; Wood, 2000), which would
then in turn strengthen the negative component of high-fat,
high-carbohydrate, and dessert and candies food attitudes
and the positive component of fruit and vegetable attitudes.
These attitudes might then influence behavior (as discussed
later), with behavioral lapses, in turn, strengthening a restrained eater’s resolve to avoid forbidden foods, thereby increasing restraint. If such a cycle exists, it may be one cause
of the pattern of bingeing and purging characteristic of
bulimia. Further studies, utilizing longitudinal or quasi-experimental methods, could shed light on these issues.
Regardless of the causal relation between dietary restraint
and attitudinal ambivalence, the results of this study have
several interesting implications for eating behavior. First,
ambivalent attitudes may influence how restrained eaters respond to food-related information. Compared to univalent
attitudes, ambivalent attitudes are associated with much
more systematic processing of attitude-relevant information
(Jonas et al., 1997; Maio et al., 1996). This indicates that information associated with food, and especially high-fats,
high-carbohydrates, and desserts and candies, will be extensively processed by restrained eaters, perhaps explaining the
greater attention and memory that restrained eaters have for
forbidden food-related words (Israeli & Stewart, 2001;
Knight & Boland, 1989). Moreover, it suggests that aspects
of a communication (e.g., type of food discussed and
whether its positive or negative aspects are emphasized) may
have particularly large effects on restrained eaters. For instance, the extensive media attention afforded to fad diets
that often prohibit one or more types of food, combined with
more systematic processing, could lead to even greater restrictive behavior among restrained eaters. Those who wish
to affect restrained eaters’ behavior should explore the consequences of this processing bias.
In addition to indirect effects via the processing of
food-related information, ambivalence may have direct effects on behavior. Ambivalence has been associated with decreased attitude accessibility and greater attitude malleability
(Armitage & Conner, 2000; Bargh, Chaiken, Govender, &
Pratto, 1992; MacDonald & Zanna, 1998) suggesting that environmental cues or subtle primes could have a large effect
on the eating behavior of those with dietary restraint. Indeed,
Fedoroff, Polivy, and Herman (1997), found that both an olfactory cue as well as instructions to ruminate on a highly
fatty food (pizza) elicited significantly greater craving, liking, and desire to eat the cued food in highly restrained eaters. This also raises the possibility that restrained eaters
would be more affected by subtle negative cues and, when
primed with the negative aspects of the food, would show
much lower craving and liking than nonrestrained eaters. In
addition, given the established relationship between attitudes
and behavior (Ajzen & Fishbein, 2000), it is possible that attitudinal ambivalence mediates or moderates the relationship
between dietary restraint and disinhibited eating. Individuals
with more ambivalent attitudes have a weaker relationship
between their behavioral intentions and their actual behaviors (Conner & Sparks, 2002). Despite restrained eater’s
strong intentions to abstain from forbidden foods, the more
tenuous relationship between their intentions and their attitudes may produce the behavioral pattern captured in studies
of disinhibited eating.
Finally, the nature of dietary restraint may have interesting implications for its effects on attitudes and eating behavior. Herman and Polivy (1984) characterized the way restrained eaters control their food intake in terms of
cognitive control processes. This control manifests as a diet
boundary composed of strict cognitive beliefs and rules
about appropriate or desired food intake (Herman & Polivy,
1984). If restrained eating is primarily cognitive in nature,
AMBIVALENCE AND DIETARY RESTRAINT
then it is possible that its effects on attitudes and behavior
may be primarily cognitive in nature. Since attitudes are
composed of cognitive, affective, and behavioral components (Eagly & Chaiken, 1998), this suggests that changes
in cognitive beliefs, and not affect or behavior, are driving
restrained eating’s effects on attitudes. For example, in the
case of fatty foods, the cognitive control processes inherent
in dietary restraint may cause beliefs associated with fatty
foods to change negatively, while leaving intact positive affective associations. This raises the possibility that the negative component of fatty food attitudes has a cognitive basis, whereas the positive component has a more affective
basis. Unfortunately, since attitudes with strong cognitive
bases are more resistant to persuasive communications than
more affectively based attitudes (Chaiken, Pomerantz, &
Giner-Sorolla, 1995; Eagly & Chaiken, 1995; Rosenberg,
1968), this may make belief-based or persuasive argument
interventions more difficult.
In summation, this research highlights the importance of
both the attributes of the specific attitude object (the different
categories of foods) as well as traits inherent in the perceiver
(level of restrained eating) in determining a specific attitude
judgment. Additionally, we demonstrated that restrained eaters display a quite different pattern of food attitudes than do
unrestrained eaters and highlighted the important role that
positive and negative evaluations separately play in restrained eaters’ ambivalent attitudes. Future research should
continue to examine both the importance of target and
perceiver effects in attitudes, as well as the potentially important role attitudinal ambivalence can play in changing the eating behavior of restrained eaters.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This article was based on a master’s thesis completed by the
first author and was supported by a NSF Graduate Research
Fellowship to the first author. The authors would like to thank
Alison Carr for her assistance in data collection and Charles
M. Judd, Bernadette Park, and Linda Craighead for their
comments on an earlier version of this article.
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