Research Report Effects of priming thoughts about control on anxiety and food intake as moderated by dietary restraint Ken J. Rotenberg a, * , Claire Lancaster a , Julie Marsden a , Sarah Pryce a , Juliet Williams a , Paul Lattimore b a Department of Psychology, Keele University, Keele, Staffordshire ST5 5BG, UK b Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool, Merseyside, UK Received 5 August 2003; revised 6 November 2003; accepted 8 September 2004 Abstract The study was designed to examine: (a) if activating thoughts about control affects anxiety and food intake and (b) if those effects are moderated by dietary restraint. Eighty female undergraduates were administered the Dietary Restraint questionnaire and were primed for cognitions of control or of lack of control. The participants’ perceptions of control over food consumption, their state anxiety, and their food intake as part of an alleged taste-test, were assessed. As evidence for the effectiveness of priming, participants reported less control over food consumption after being primed for lack of control than for control cognitions. As expected, Restraint score was negatively correlated with perceived control over food consumption. Consistent with hypothesis, participants high in dietary restraint experienced greater anxiety after being primed for control than after priming for lack of control, whereas participants low in dietary restraint displayed the opposite pattern. These findings were consistent with the cognitive dissonance principle that individuals experience greater anxiety when cognitions are inconsistent with personal beliefs than when they are consistent. As expected, priming thoughts of lack of control resulted in greater food intake than did priming thoughts of control, supporting the hypothesis of a nonconscious, automatic link between cognitions and food intake. q 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Priming; Control; Restraint; Beliefs; Anxiety Introduction Various theories on eating problems advance the principle that individuals’ perceptions of control over food consumption serve as implicit cognitive schemas that affect food intake (Baumeister & Heatherton, 1996; Grillo & Shiffman, 1994; Herman & Polivy, 1975; Westenhoefer, Broeckmann, & Volker, 1994). In this paper, food intake is used to refer to the quantity of food consumed. Studies only have yielded an association between perceptions of control over food consumption and food intake and, consequently, provide only limited evidence for the causal relation between them. Furthermore, previous research has not revealed whether control cognitions serve as a nonconscious automatic cause of food intake. The primary purpose of the present study was to utilize priming of control cognitions in order to examine that causal relation. In addition, the study was designed to examine whether dietary restraint was negatively associated with perceived control over food consumption and, consequently, would moderate the effects of the priming control cognitions as evidenced in patterns of anxiety. Cognitive priming Cognitive priming is the process by which the accessi- bility of a particular schema, concept or related stored information is increased by recent or repeated exposure to a similar schema, concept or word (see Baldwin, Carrell, & Lopez, 1990; Higgins, Rholes, & Jones, 1977). Studies have demonstrated that cognitive priming affects individuals’ perceptions of others’ characteristics, (Higgins et al., 1977), depression (Gotlib & Cane, 1987; Gotlib & McCann, 1984; 0195-6663/$ - see front matter q 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.appet.2004.09.001 Appetite 44 (2005) 235–241 www.elsevier.com/locate/appet * Corresponding author. E-mail address: k.j.rotenberg@keele.ac.uk (K.J. Rotenberg).