scholarly journals Associations between use of self-regulatory strategies and daily eating patterns: An experience sampling study in college-aged women

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard B. Lopez ◽  
Danielle Cosme ◽  
Kaitlyn M. Werner ◽  
Blair Saunders ◽  
Wilhelm Hofmann
Keyword(s):  
Goal Attainment ◽  
Self Control ◽  
Eating Patterns ◽  
Use Of Self ◽  
Adaptive Use ◽  
Regulatory Strategies ◽  
Regulation Strategies ◽  
Ecological Momentary ◽  
Momentary Assessment ◽  
Food Consumed

AbstractPrevious theorizing suggests there are multiple means by which people regulate their emotions and impulses, but that these strategies vary in the degree to which they support goal attainment. Some have proposed that proactive strategies (e.g. situation selection, distraction) may be particularly effective, while interventive strategies (e.g. suppression) are less effective. Despite these diverging predictions, researchers have yet to examine spontaneous use of these strategies and their respective and combined efficacy when applied to momentary food desires experienced in daily life. In the present study, we assessed eating patterns for one week via ecological momentary assessment in college-aged women (N = 106). Results from pre-registered analyses indicated that using a variety of strategies, including preventative strategies such as situation selection and distraction, was associated with greater self-control success, as indexed by weaker desires, higher resistance, lower likelihood of enacting desires, and less food consumed. A similar pattern was observed when participants implemented additional strategies during desire episodes, which they were more likely to do when their desires conflicted with other self-regulatory goals. All associations were observed while controlling for momentary hunger levels, dieting status, age, and body mass index. These findings are consistent with a growing body of work assessing people’s spontaneous use of emotion regulation strategies in everyday contexts, suggesting potential meta-motivational tendencies marked by flexible and adaptive use of self-regulatory strategies.

scholarly journals Associations between use of self-regulatory strategies and daily eating patterns: an experience sampling study in college-aged females

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard B. Lopez ◽  
Danielle Cosme ◽  
Kaitlyn M. Werner ◽  
Blair Saunders ◽  
Wilhelm Hofmann
Keyword(s):  
Goal Attainment ◽  
Self Control ◽  
Eating Patterns ◽  
Use Of Self ◽  
Adaptive Use ◽  
Regulatory Strategies ◽  
Regulation Strategies ◽  
Ecological Momentary ◽  
Momentary Assessment ◽  
Food Consumed

Previous theorizing suggests there are multiple means by which people regulate their emotions and impulses, but that these strategies vary in the degree to which they support goal attainment. Some have proposed that antecedent-focused strategies (e.g., situation selection, distraction) may be particularly effective, while response-focused strategies (e.g., suppression) are less effective. Despite these diverging predictions, researchers have yet to examine spontaneous use of these strategies and their respective and combined efficacy when applied to momentary food desires experienced in daily life. In the present study, we assessed college-aged females’ (N=103) eating patterns for one week via ecological momentary assessment. Results from pre-registered analyses indicate that using a variety of strategies, including antecedent-focused strategies such as situation selection and distraction, was associated with greater self-control success, as indexed by weaker desires, higher resistance, lower likelihood of enacting desires, and less food consumed. Additionally, participants were more successful during desire episodes in which they implemented additional strategies, as well as during episodes in which their desires conflicted with other goals they were actively pursuing. All associations were observed while controlling for momentary hunger levels, dieting status, age, and body mass index. These findings are consistent with a growing body of work assessing people’s spontaneous use of emotion regulation strategies in everyday contexts, suggesting potential meta-motivational tendencies marked by flexible and adaptive use of self-regulatory strategies.

scholarly journals Emotions as Context: Do the Naturalistic Effects of Emotion Regulation Strategies Depend on the Regulated Emotion?

2019 ◽  
Vol 38 (6) ◽  
pp. 451-474 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew W. Southward ◽  
Jane E. Heiy ◽  
Jennifer S. Cheavens
Keyword(s):  
Emotion Regulation ◽  
Ecological Momentary Assessment ◽  
Emotion Regulation Strategies ◽  
Emotional Suppression ◽  
Specific Emotion ◽  
Regulation Strategies ◽  
Ecological Momentary ◽  
External Stimuli ◽  
Other Blame ◽  
Momentary Assessment

Introduction: Researchers have examined how several contexts impact the effectiveness of emotion regulation strategies. However, few have considered the emotion-to-be-regulated as a context of interest. Specific emotions are important contexts because they may require particular responses to internal and external stimuli for optimal regulation. Method: Ninety-two undergraduates completed 10 days of ecological momentary assessment, reporting their current mood, recent emotions, and emotion regulation strategies three times per day. Results: The frequency with which certain emotion regulation strategies were used (i.e., acceptance, positive refocusing, reappraisal, problem-solving, and other-blame) differed by the specific emotion experienced. Acceptance and positive refocusing were associated with better mood regardless of emotion, while substance use was associated with worse mood regardless of emotion. Reappraisal was associated with better mood in response to anger than anxiety or sadness, while emotional suppression and other-blame were associated with worse mood in response to anger. Discussion: These results suggest some emotion regulation strategies exhibit emotion-invariant effects while others depend on the emotion-to-be-regulated.

scholarly journals The Wisdom to Know the Difference

2016 ◽  
Vol 27 (12) ◽  
pp. 1651-1659 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon J. Haines ◽  
John Gleeson ◽  
Peter Kuppens ◽  
Tom Hollenstein ◽  
Joseph Ciarrochi ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Emotion Regulation ◽  
Adaptive Strategy ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Opposite Pattern ◽  
Regulation Strategies ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The Right ◽  
Ecological Momentary ◽  
Momentary Assessment ◽  
Healthy Participants

The ability to regulate emotions is central to well-being, but healthy emotion regulation may not merely be about using the “right” strategies. According to the strategy-situation-fit hypothesis, emotion-regulation strategies are conducive to well-being only when used in appropriate contexts. This study is the first to test the strategy-situation-fit hypothesis using ecological momentary assessment of cognitive reappraisal—a putatively adaptive strategy. We expected people who used reappraisal more in uncontrollable situations and less in controllable situations to have greater well-being than people with the opposite pattern of reappraisal use. Healthy participants ( n = 74) completed measures of well-being in the lab and used a smartphone app to report their use of reappraisal and perceived controllability of their environment 10 times a day for 1 week. Results supported the strategy-situation-fit hypothesis. Participants with relatively high well-being used reappraisal more in situations they perceived as lower in controllability and less in situations they perceived as higher in controllability. In contrast, we found little evidence for an association between greater well-being and greater mean use of reappraisal across situations.

Perceived momentary willpower fluctuates with affect and predicts subsequent distress intolerance

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Veilleux ◽  
Kayla D Skinner ◽  
Danielle Baker ◽  
Kaitlyn Chamberlain
Keyword(s):  
Negative Affect ◽  
Positive Affect ◽  
Externalizing Problems ◽  
Self Control ◽  
Distress Intolerance ◽  
Time Lagged ◽  
Personality Features ◽  
Ecological Momentary ◽  
Borderline Personality Features ◽  
Momentary Assessment

Although willpower—a common synonym for self-control—is typically construed as an individual difference, people may experience subjective shifts in their momentary willpower over time and based on context, where context includes affect. People who struggle with self-control (i.e., those with externalizing problems such as substance use, difficulties with eating, and those with borderline personality features) may be particularly vulnerable to willpower fluctuations. In three studies with four different sample groups (college students without borderline features: n = 49; borderline features group: n = 50; current smokers: n = 61; chronic dieters: n = 92), participants completed one week of ecological momentary assessment (EMA) where momentary willpower, positive affect, negative affect, tiredness, and distress intolerance were assessed randomly 7 times per day. Smokers and dieters provided additional reports about states prior to smoking and eating. Results revealed that higher momentary willpower was associated with lower negative affect and greater positive affect. Smokers and dieters reported lower willpower immediately before smoking and eating, respectively, and reported lower willpower alongside heightened craving uncontrollability. Lower momentary willpower also was associated with higher tiredness and concurrent distress intolerance. Finally, lower willpower predicted subsequent distress intolerance via time-lagged analyses for the psychopathology groups (borderline features, smokers, and dieters) only. Overall, this study suggests that perceptions of willpower are indicators of self-control self-efficacy, particularly for those who struggle with externalizing problems.

scholarly journals The costs of over-control in anorexia nervosa: evidence from fMRI and ecological momentary assessment

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sophie Pauligk ◽  
Maria Seidel ◽  
Sophia Fürtjes ◽  
Joseph A. King ◽  
Daniel Geisler ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Anorexia Nervosa ◽  
Cognitive Processing ◽  
Ecological Momentary Assessment ◽  
Self Control ◽  
Affective States ◽  
Positive Effects ◽  
Fmri Session ◽  
Negative Affective States ◽  
Ecological Momentary ◽  
Momentary Assessment

AbstractA growing body of evidence suggests that a high level of self-control may, despite its positive effects, influence cognitive processing in an unfavorable manner. However, the affective costs of self-control have only rarely been investigated. Anorexia nervosa (AN) is an eating disorder that is often characterized by excessive self-control. Here, we used fMRI to explore whether over-control in AN may have negative affective consequences. 36 predominantly adolescent female AN patients and 36 age-matched healthy controls (HC) viewed negative and neutral pictures during two separate fMRI sessions before and after 10 min of rest. We tested whether abnormally elevated neural activity during the initial presentation in a brain region broadly implicated in top-down control, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC), could predict subsequent activation in limbic areas relevant to bottom-up affective processing. Using ecological momentary assessment (EMA), we also tested for associations between the aforementioned neuroimaging markers and negative affective states in the two weeks following the experiment. fMRI data revealed that higher initial activation of the dlPFC in AN predicted increased amygdala reactivity during the second fMRI session, which in turn was related to increased self-reported tension during two weeks following the scan. These data suggest that over-control in AN patients may come at a cost including negative affective states on a short (minutes) as well as a longer time scale (days). This mechanism may significantly contribute to the persistence of AN.

scholarly journals Flexibility in Using Self-Regulatory Strategies to Manage Self-Control Conflicts: The Role of Metacognitive Knowledge, Strategy Repertoire, and Feedback Monitoring

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sebastian Bürgler ◽  
Rick H. Hoyle ◽  
Marie Hennecke
Keyword(s):  
Metacognitive Knowledge ◽  
Self Control ◽  
The Past ◽  
Knowledge Strategy ◽  
Regulatory Strategies ◽  
Feedback Monitoring ◽  
Regulation Strategies ◽  
Regulatory Flexibility ◽  
Three Components

For regulating emotion, it has been shown that people benefit from being flexible in their use of emotion regulation strategies. In the current study, we built on research focused on regulatory flexibility with respect to emotions to investigate flexibility in the use of self-regulatory strategies to resolve daily self-control conflicts. We investigated three components of flexibility: (1) metacognitive knowledge, (2) strategy repertoire, and (3) feedback monitoring. In a 10-day experience sampling study, 226 participants reported whether they had, within the past hour, experienced a self-control conflict of initiating an aversive activity, persisting in it, or inhibiting an unwanted impulse in response to a temptation. Results support the hypothesis that higher levels of all three components of flexibility are associated with higher levels of success in managing daily self-control conflicts, except for strategy repertoire and feedback monitoring in conflicts of persistence. Results also support the hypothesis that higher levels of trait self-control are associated with higher levels of metacognitive knowledge and feedback monitoring for conflicts of initiation, but not for conflicts of persistence and inhibition. We found no evidence of an association between trait self-control and strategy repertoire. These findings demonstrate the importance of flexible strategy use during daily self-control conflicts.

scholarly journals State impulsivity amplifies urges without diminishing self-control

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Thomas van Baal ◽  
Neda Moskovsky ◽  
Jakob Hohwy ◽  
Antonio Verdejo-Garcia
Keyword(s):  
Process Model ◽  
Alternative Explanation ◽  
Self Control ◽  
Dual Process ◽  
Research Progress ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Considerable Impact ◽  
Ecological Momentary ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Momentary Assessment

Impulsivity has garnered a wealth of research interest, but the focus has been predominantly on trait-related aspects, rather than state-related fluctuations. Yet it is well known that impulsivity is subject to intrapersonal fluctuations, which have considerable impact on everyday behaviour. The lack of attention to state impulsivity has limited research progress because assumptions about impulsivity need to be informed by findings on the relationship between fluctuations in state impulsivity and moment-to-moment behaviour. This has left assumptions about the effect of impulsivity on behaviour relatively unquestioned. First, impulsivity is mostly assumed to negatively affect people’s ability to control their impulses, but an alternative explanation, yet to be tested, could be that impulsivity increases the urge that people experience. Second, hunger is a strong motivational state that may sensitise impulsive drives, and research in non-human animals has shown that it negatively affects the ability to control impulses, but the evidence on this effect has been mixed for humans. Accordingly, the current work reports findings from an ecological momentary assessment study, wherein participants answered surveys about their moment-to-moment impulses pertaining to snacking, consuming alcohol, smoking, shopping, gambling, and aggression. We tested whether state impulsivity and hunger affected behaviour through a dual-process model, affecting both the experience of urges and self-control. We found that state impulsivity is associated with stronger impulses, but we found no evidence of an association with diminished self-control. Being in a hungry state amplifies urges across different types of impulses, and it negatively affects the likelihood of controlling impulses.

scholarly journals More (of the right strategies) is better: Disaggregating the naturalistic between- and within-person structure and effects of emotion regulation strategies

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew W. Southward ◽  
Jennifer S. Cheavens
Keyword(s):  
Emotion Regulation ◽  
Emotion Regulation Strategies ◽  
Multiple Strategies ◽  
Engagement Strategies ◽  
Multilevel Factor Analysis ◽  
Emotional Outcomes ◽  
Regulation Strategies ◽  
The Right ◽  
Ecological Momentary ◽  
Momentary Assessment

Although people often use multiple strategies to regulate their emotions, it is unclear if using more strategies effectively changes emotional outcomes. This may be because there is no clear, data-driven structure to organise which strategies people use together, so strategies with opposing impacts are modelled together. We first conducted a multilevel factor analysis of negative- and positive-emotion regulation strategies among undergraduates (n = 92) completing ecological momentary assessment three times per day for 10 days. Solutions including 3-within/3-between factors were most interpretable. Using more between-person Adaptive Engagement strategies and within-person Adaptive Engagement, Enhancement, and Behavioural strategies predicted improved mood, whereas using more between-person Aversive Cognitive and within-person Aversive Cognitive and Disengagement strategies predicted worse mood, ps < .05. Using a greater quantity of strategies may thus promote better, or worse, emotional outcomes, depending on the class of strategies used.

scholarly journals Alpha and theta oscillations contribute to attribute regulation in dietary decision making under self-control

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Azadeh HajiHosseini ◽  
Cendri A. Hutcherson
Keyword(s):  
Time Course ◽  
Self Regulation ◽  
Food Choices ◽  
Self Control ◽  
Alpha Power ◽  
Neural Signals ◽  
Regulatory Strategies ◽  
Influence Of Food ◽  
Goal Relevance ◽  
Regulation Strategies

AbstractHow do different cognitive self-regulation strategies alter attribute value construction (AVC) and evidence accumulation (EA)? We recorded EEG during food choices while participants responded naturally or regulated their choices by focusing on healthy eating or decreasing their desire for all food. Using a drift diffusion model (DDM), we predicted the time course of neural signals associated with AVC and EA. Results suggested that suppression of frontal and occipital alpha power matched model-predicted EA signals: it tracked the goal-relevance of tastiness and healthiness attributes, predicted individual differences in successful down-regulation of tastiness, and conformed to the DDM-predicted time course of EA. We also found an earlier rise in frontal and occipital theta power that represented food tastiness more strongly during regulation, and predicted a weaker influence of food tastiness on behaviour. Our findings suggest that different regulatory strategies may commonly recruit theta-mediated control processes to modulate the attribute influence on EA.

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