Department of Psychology, Centre for Cognitive Neuroscience, Paris-Lodron-University of Salzburg, Hellbrunner Str. 34, 5020, Salzburg, Austria.
Medical Faculty Mannheim, Heidelberg University, Heidelberg, Germany.
Int J Behav Nutr Phys Act. 2024 Feb 26;21(1):24. doi: 10.1186/s12966-024-01566-x.
Maintaining a healthy body weight and reaching long-term dietary goals requires ongoing self-monitoring and behavioral adjustments. How individuals respond to successes and failures is described in models of self-regulation: while cybernetic models propose that failures lead to increased self-regulatory efforts and successes permit a reduction of such efforts, motivational models (e.g., social-cognitive theory) make opposite predictions. Here, we tested these conflicting models in an ecological momentary assessment (EMA) context and explored whether effort adjustments are related to inter-individual differences in perceived self-regulatory success in dieting (i.e., weight management).
Using linear mixed effects models, we tested in 174 diet-interested individuals whether current day dietary success or failure (e.g., on Monday) was followed by self-regulatory effort adjustment for the next day (e.g., on Tuesday) across 14 days. Success vs. failure was operationalized with two EMA items: first, whether food intake was higher vs. lower than usual and second, whether food intake was perceived as more vs. less goal-congruent than usual. Trait-level perceived self-regulatory success in dieting was measured on a questionnaire.
Intended self-regulatory effort increased more strongly after days with dietary success (i.e., eating less than usual / rating intake as goal-congruent) than after days with dietary failure (i.e., eating more than usual / rating intake as goal-incongruent), especially in those individuals with lower scores on perceived self-regulatory success in dieting.
Findings support mechanisms proposed by social-cognitive theory, especially in unsuccessful dieters. Thus, future dietary interventions could focus on preventing the decrease in self-regulatory effort after instances of dietary failures and thereby mitigate the potential risk that a single dietary failure initiates a downward spiral into unhealthy eating.
维持健康的体重和实现长期的饮食目标需要持续的自我监测和行为调整。个体对成功和失败的反应在自我调节模型中有所描述：虽然控制论模型提出失败会导致自我调节努力的增加，而成功则允许减少这种努力，但动机模型（如社会认知理论）则做出相反的预测。在这里，我们在生态瞬时评估（EMA）背景下测试了这些相互矛盾的模型，并探讨了努力调整是否与节食（即体重管理）中感知到的自我调节成功的个体间差异有关。
我们使用线性混合效应模型，在 174 名有兴趣节食的个体中测试了以下情况：在 14 天内，当前一天的饮食成功或失败（例如，在周一）是否会导致第二天（例如，在周二）的自我调节努力调整。成功与失败的操作化是通过两个 EMA 项目实现的：首先，食物摄入量是否高于或低于通常水平，其次，食物摄入量是否被认为比通常更符合目标。节食中感知到的特质水平的自我调节成功是通过问卷来衡量的。
与饮食失败（即，比通常吃更多/评价摄入与目标不一致）相比，在饮食成功（即，比通常吃更少/评价摄入与目标一致）后，个体更强烈地增加了自我调节的意图。这一现象在感知到的自我调节成功较低的节食者中尤为明显。
研究结果支持了社会认知理论提出的机制，尤其是在不成功的节食者中。因此，未来的饮食干预可以侧重于防止在饮食失败后自我调节努力的下降，从而减轻单次饮食失败引发不健康饮食的潜在风险。
