Estimated capacity of impulse control: A Mechanism to explain the effects of temptation strength on consumption self-regulation

Abstract

There are many theories of self regulation to explain healthy and unhealthy food choices. A few studies found that temptation strength plays an important role in food regulation. The results of these studies implicated that weak temptations are more dangerous than strong temptations. The theory investigated in this study was the Restraint Bias Theory. This theory suggests that the estimated capacity of your own impulse control can play an important role in eating behavior. The present study investigates the effect of estimated capacity of impulse control on strong and weak food temptations. There were two hypotheses tested in this study. The first hypothesis was: that participants in the strong temptation condition would estimate their own impulse control lower than the participants in the weak temptation condition. The second hypothesis was: that participants in the weak temptation condition would eat more from the food temptation than participants in the strong temptation condition. The results indicated that there was a significant difference between the three conditions in the amount they ate from the food temptation. There was no significant difference between the three conditions in estimated impulse control. More research is needed to see if the Restraint Bias Theory can be used as a mechanism to explain the effect of temptation strength on eating behavior.