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Biomedical subjects

J Polivy

Publications and source records attributed to J Polivy.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources
PubMed1993

Differences between depressed and nondepressed individuals in the recognition of and response to facial emotional cues.

The present study investigated the recognition of, and responses to, facial expressions of emotion. Participants were all women and consisted of the following groups: (a) Sixteen depressed college students; (b) 16 nondepressed college students; (c) 16 depressed psychiatric patients; and (d) 11 nondepressed psychiatric patients. Results suggest that both depressed groups, relative to the nondepressed college group, made more errors in recognizing the facial expressions and reported more freezing or tensing; higher fear and depression reactions; and less comfort with their own emotional reactions to these expressions and a stronger desire to change these reactions. Few differences were found between the depressed psychiatric patients and the psychiatric control subjects. It is concluded that inappropriate reactions to others' emotions may maintain or increase depression.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1993

Self-awareness, task failure, and disinhibition: how attentional focus affects eating.

Dieting and nondieting subjects were given either failure or neutral performance feedback on a problem-solving task. Failure subjects were then assigned to one of three self-awareness conditions: One group was forced to watch a video clip of themselves failing on the problem-solving task, one group was asked to watch a distracting video clip on bighorn sheep, and the final group was asked to sit quietly for 10 minutes. Subjects were then allowed to eat as much ice cream as they wanted. Only in those conditions which allowed--or promoted--low self-awareness (the failure/distraction and simple failure condition) did dieters show disinhibited eating. In the failure/videotape condition, which enforced high levels of self-awareness, eating in dieters remained inhibited. This supports the proposal that a reduction in self-awareness is necessary for lifting of inhibitions. Eating in nondieters was reduced in the failure/videotape and simple failure conditions, possibly because of the autonomic correlates of distress.

Achievement↗
PubMed1992

Effects of distress on eating: the importance of ego-involvement.

Schotte (1992) argued that ego threat is not a necessary precondition for the disinhibition of eating in dieters. This article agrees that there are indeed other triggers for disinhibition, as has long been widely acknowledged, but also argues that when distress does act as a trigger for disinhibition, it does so by threatening the dieter's self-image.

Arousal↗
PubMed1991

Is the effect of a social model on eating attenuated by hunger?

Two experiments were conducted to assess the effect of social influence pressures on eating in individuals differing in initial hunger; we assumed that conformity to a model would decline as hunger increased. In the first experiment, subjects' eating conformed closely to the model's eating, with subjects eating very little when the model ate very little, even after 24 h of food deprivation. In a second experiment, the conformity effect again dominated the results, even after lengthy deprivation. We discuss the implications and limitations of this powerful modelling effect on eating.

Adult↗
PubMed1991

Restraint, weight loss, and variability of body weight.

Restrained and unrestrained subjects (n = 24) were weighed daily for a 6-week period and again 6 months later in order to determine whether dietary restraint or relative body weight is the better predictor of weight variability. Restraint was a significantly better predictor of naturally occurring weight fluctuations than was relative body weight. Furthermore, the 2 factors of the Restraint Scale, Concern for Dieting and Weight Fluctuations, were both significant predictors of weight variability. We propose that exaggerated weight fluctuations are not a natural concomitant of higher body weight but possibly the consequence of a cycle of dieting and overeating, which seems to preclude actual weight loss.

Body Weight↗
PubMed1991

Effects of physical threat and ego threat on eating behavior.

Restrained and unrestrained subjects were subjected to one of three distress manipulations prior to an ad lib taste task. The physical fear threat (anticipated electric shock) significantly decreased unrestrained subjects' eating and slightly increased restrained subjects' eating. Both ego threats (failure at an easy task or anticipating having to give a speech in front of an evaluative audience) significantly increased restrained subjects' eating but did not significantly suppress unrestrained subjects' eating. This pattern supports the proposition that physical fear differs from more general dysphoria in its effects on eating, perhaps because of the divergent effects of these two types of distress on eating control mechanisms, which in turn differ in restrained and unrestrained eaters.

Depression↗
PubMed1990

Self-predictions of emotional response patterns: age, sex, and situational determinants.

A total of 407 males and females in 4 different age groups (M age = 8.0, 10.8, 15.2, and 20.3 years) completed questionnaires requiring self-ratings of 5 emotions (angry, happy, sad, fearful, and loving), on a 5-point scale, for 10 affect-laden sentences. Each of the 5 emotions was targeted as a key emotion by 2 sentences. The resulting patterns indicate that children as young as 8 can discriminate between affect-eliciting statements, differentially rate up to 5 concurrent emotional responses, and predict response patterns similar to those predicted by adults. Furthermore, sex differences occur during adolescence whereby males predict more varied but less intense secondary emotions, whereas females predict fewer but more intense secondary emotions.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1989

Restraint and internal responsiveness: effects of placebo manipulations of hunger state on eating.

Restrained and unrestrained subjects were given a "vitamin" (placebo) prior to an ad-lib taste test. Subjects were either told nothing about the placebo or told that previous subjects had reported that the vitamin had made them feel either hungry or full. As predicted, restrained subjects, in two separate studies, behaved in accordance with placebo messages, eating more when given "hungry" messages than when given "full" messages. Unrestrained subjects showed an apparent reverse-placebo effect; they ate less ice cream when given "hungry" information than when given "full" information. Hunger ratings did not parallel eating behavior; possible explanations for this discrepancy are considered. We conclude that unresponsiveness to internal hunger state, and an overreliance on external cognitive cues, characterizes restrained but not unrestrained individuals.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1987

Food perception in dieters and non-dieters.

Two studies examined dieter-non-dieter differences in food perception. There were two specific questions. First, do dieters spontaneously categorize foods in terms of emotions (e.g., guilt) more than do non-dieters? Second, do dieters perceive foods in a more complex manner than do non-dieters? Female undergraduates (N = 50 and N = 46 in the two studies) were given cards containing the names of randomly-selected generic foods (e.g., cakes, melons) and were asked to "group the foods according to how you think about them when it comes to eating them". Herman and Polivy's Restraint Scale was used to classify subjects as dieters and non-dieters. Cluster analyses of the labels used by subjects to name their groups revealed six clusters in both studies. Four of these clusters showed substantial similarity across the two studies. These were an Enjoyment Cluster, a Sensory Qualities Cluster, a No Guilt Cluster and a Nutritional Qualities Cluster. One major finding was that, in both studies, dieters had significantly higher scores on the No Guilt Cluster than did non-dieters. Thus dieters thought of food in terms of absence of guilt more than did non-dieters. With respect to the issue of complexity in perception, the findings clearly contradicted the notion that dieters simply dichotomize food into "good" and "bad" categories.

Behavior↗
PubMed1987

The illusion of counter-regulation.

The present study investigated the ad libitum eating response of dieters and non-dieters after (a) no preload, (b) a large preload (15 oz. milkshake), or (c) an extra-large preload (30 oz. milkshake). Non-dieters ate progressively less following larger preloads, exhibiting normal compensation. Dieters, however, ate more ad libitum ice cream after the large preload than after no preload, thus exhibiting the well-established "counter-regulation" effect. After the extra-large preload, dieters ate very little ice cream ad libitum, suggesting that they are responsive to satiety pressures. These results were interpreted as indicating that dieters' ad libitum eating is neither unregulated nor truly counter-regulated. We demonstrate that dieters eat more after a large preload than after a small preload (i.e. exhibit "counter-regulation") only under certain clearly specifiable conditions. Consideration of our "boundary model" helps in understanding whether regulation or counter-regulation is likely to be observed in dieters.

Adult↗
PubMed1986

The effects of self-attention and public attention on eating in restrained and unrestrained subjects.

Two experiments were conducted to assess the effects of self-attention and public attention to food intake on eating by dieters and nondieters. Female dieters ate the greatest number of candies ad lib after consuming a forced two-milk shake preload; the addition of either self-attention or implied public attention, through the manipulated availability of a waste basket for the disposing of candy wrappers, inhibited eating substantially. For nondieters, the preload itself inhibited candy consumption, which declined further only under conditions of public attention to candy intake. In a second experiment, self- and public attention again inhibited the cookie consumption of preloaded dieters, but preloaded nondieters were not influenced by the attention manipulations, eating minimally in all conditions. Nondieters who were not preloaded, however, did reduce their intake in the two attention conditions. Implications for regulatory self-control were discussed.

Adult↗