Jones Alyssa C, Herr Nathaniel R
University of Kentucky, Department of Psychology, Kastle Hall 119, 171 Funkhouser Dr., Lexington, KY 40506-0044, USA.
American University, Department of Psychology, Asbury 321A, 4400 Massachusetts Ave NW, Washington, D.C. 20016, USA.
Eat Behav. 2018 Apr;29:35-40. doi: 10.1016/j.eatbeh.2018.02.003. Epub 2018 Feb 17.
Emotion differentiation is the ability to identify and label emotional experiences into discrete categories. The present study examined the influence of emotion regulation difficulties, emotion differentiation, and emotional state-specifically sad versus positive mood-on caloric intake in a laboratory setting. Undergraduate participants completed a series of questionnaires, including measures of emotion regulation difficulties and emotion differentiation, and then underwent a randomly assigned sad or positive mood induction. Afterwards, they participated in a taste test. Food was counted before and after the taste test to determine total caloric intake. Results showed that negative emotion differentiation was significantly inversely associated with overall caloric intake, such that low negative emotion differentiators ate more regardless of mood induction group. Positive emotion differentiation was not associated with caloric intake. Additional analysis found that negative emotion differentiation mediated the relation between emotion regulation difficulties and caloric intake. An alternative model found that emotion regulation difficulties did not mediate the relation between negative emotion differentiation and caloric intake. Our results suggest that reducing caloric intake among individuals with emotion regulation difficulties may involve incorporating strategies to specifically target the ability to differentiate between emotions.
情绪分化是指将情感体验识别并归类为不同类别的能力。本研究在实验室环境中考察了情绪调节困难、情绪分化以及特定情绪状态（即悲伤与积极情绪）对热量摄入的影响。本科参与者完成了一系列问卷，包括情绪调节困难和情绪分化的测量，然后接受随机分配的悲伤或积极情绪诱导。之后，他们参加了味觉测试。在味觉测试前后对食物进行计数，以确定总热量摄入。结果表明，消极情绪分化与总体热量摄入显著负相关，即消极情绪分化能力低的人无论情绪诱导组如何，摄入的热量都更多。积极情绪分化与热量摄入无关。进一步分析发现，消极情绪分化在情绪调节困难与热量摄入之间起中介作用。另一种模型发现，情绪调节困难并未在消极情绪分化与热量摄入之间起中介作用。我们的研究结果表明，减少情绪调节困难个体的热量摄入可能需要采用专门针对情绪分化能力的策略。
