Short communication Unintentional eating. What determines goal-incongruent chocolate consumption? Julia L. Allan a, *, Marie Johnston a , Neil Campbell b a School of Psychology, William Guild Building, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen AB24 2UB, UK b Centre of Academic Primary Care, Foresterhill Health Centre, University of Aberdeen, Westburn Road, Aberdeen AB25 2AY, UK Introduction Although snacks are theoretically supplementary to the main diet, they represent a major source of caloric intake (Summerbell, Moody, Shanks, Stock, & Geissler, 1995). Snack foods are typically highly palatable and ‘energy-dense’ (i.e. they contain many calories for the portion size) but have little nutritional value. Snacking on energy-dense foods is associated with a higher caloric intake and problems in weight control (Conner & Norman, 1996; McCrory et al., 1999). What drives overconsumption of energy-dense snacks? Animal models of eating behaviour suggest that simply increasing the availability of preferred, highly palatable foods leads to overeating (Tordoff, 2002). In Western society, energy-dense snacks are readily available in a vast array of food and non-food outlets and can be purchased through vending machines at times and locations where other foods cannot. This ready availability of highly palatable but unhealthy foods means that consumers attempting to eat healthily must constantly choose between effortfully enacting their healthy intentions and effortlessly indulging in palatable but unhealthy snack foods. Hofmann, Friese, and Strack (2009) describe such instances of temptation as tug-of-war conflicts between impulses and self- control. Impulses to indulge are aimed at short-term gratification and, unless challenged, can operate largely without conscious awareness. Impulses are thought to arise from the automatic activation of associative networks linking behaviours to known outcomes, and operate unless effortfully suppressed by the conscious activation of a higher-level, goal-oriented system (Strack & Deutsch, 2004). In such a tug-of-war between impulses and self-control, the behavioural outcome will depend on the relative strength of activation of each system. While limited control resources would be expected to bias behaviour in the direction of the impulsive system, plentiful control resources should bias behaviour in the direction of higher-order goals as the resources needed to suppress the automatic response pattern would be available. If this is the case, then individual differences in the strength and availability of cognitive control resources should be related to whether or not people choose to eat in line with their dietary intentions on presentation of palatable but intention-incongruent foods. Cognitive or ‘executive’ control processes are the higher-order processes responsible for the planning, initiation, sequencing, and monitoring of complex goal directed behaviour (Royall et al., 2002). At the group level, adults with elevated body mass index and obese children and adults have been shown to exhibit weak executive control (Braet, Claus, Verbeken, & van Vlierberghe, 2007; Cserjesi, Luminet, Molnar, & Lenard, 2007; Cserjesi, Luminet, Poncelet, & Lenard, 2009; Gunstad et al., 2007) suggesting that poor executive functioning is related at some level to dietary behaviour. Appetite 54 (2010) 422–425 ARTICLE INFO Article history: Received 18 September 2009 Received in revised form 14 December 2009 Accepted 17 January 2010 Keywords: Inhibition Executive control Executive functioning Snacking Chocolate Dietary control ABSTRACT Overeating can be automatically triggered by the presence of palatable food. When presented with an opportunity to consume unlimited chocolate under the guise of a consumer study, chocolate consumption in individuals (n = 62) with healthy dietary intentions could be predicted from a psychological measure of cognitive inhibition. Individuals who were less able to suppress goal- incongruent responses in an established inhibitory task: (a) ate more chocolate and (b) had a higher body mass index than others suggesting that these individuals were less able to exert dietary control in the presence of palatable but intention-incongruent foods. ß 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. * Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: j.allan@abdn.ac.uk (J.L. Allan), m.johnston@abdn.ac.uk (M. Johnston), n.campbell@abdn.ac.uk (N. Campbell). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Appetite journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/appet 0195-6663/$ – see front matter ß 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.appet.2010.01.009