Marriott School of Business, Brigham Young University, Campus Drive, Provo, UT, 84602, USA.
College of Business, Colorado State University, 501 W. Laurel Street, Fort Collins, CO, 80523, USA.
Appetite. 2020 Jul 1;150:104641. doi: 10.1016/j.appet.2020.104641. Epub 2020 Feb 25.
Within the domain of food consumption, we explore the antecedents and consequences of "guilty displeasures," or experiences that consumers should enjoy, but do not. Food is an emotionally charged stimulus, with consumption leading to both positive (e.g., joy) and negative (e.g., guilt) emotions. Individuals who are high in dietary restraint are particularly susceptible to experiencing negative emotions given their heightened state of arousal in the presence of indulgent food. We show that these negative emotions arise even when individuals simply imagine the food. Across one pilot study and three experiments, we provide evidence that restrained eaters actively dampen their enjoyment of indulgences (i.e., guilty displeasures). We manipulate guilt using imagery type, with outcome imagery leading to greater guilt than process imagery (study 1). We also demonstrate that individuals high, compared to low, in dietary restraint dampen their savoring of even a hypothetical indulgence when guilt is evoked (study 2). Finally, we show these effects within the context of actual food consumption (study 3). Our exploration shows that merely anticipating an indulgence can elicit guilt among consumers high in dietary restraint, thus resulting in the dampening of enjoyment during a subsequent consumption experience.
在食品消费领域，我们探讨了“内疚的愉悦”的前因后果，即消费者应该享受但却没有享受的体验。食物是一种充满情感的刺激物，其消费会带来积极的（如快乐）和消极的（如内疚）情绪。由于在放纵性食物面前会产生更高的兴奋状态，那些饮食控制较高的个体特别容易体验到消极情绪。我们表明，即使个体只是想象食物，这些消极情绪也会出现。通过一项初步研究和三项实验，我们提供了证据表明，节食者会主动抑制对放纵的享受（即内疚的愉悦）。我们通过意象类型来操纵内疚感，结果意象比过程意象引起更大的内疚感（研究 1）。我们还表明，与低饮食控制组相比，高饮食控制组的个体在产生内疚感时会抑制对即使是假设放纵的享受（研究 2）。最后，我们在实际食物消费的背景下展示了这些效果（研究 3）。我们的探索表明，仅仅是预期放纵就会引发饮食控制较高的消费者的内疚感，从而导致随后的消费体验中享受的减少。
