Testing Go/No-Go training effects on implicit evaluations of unhealthy and healthy snack foods

Abstract

Objective

Despite intending to eat healthy foods, people often yield to temptation. In environments rife with unhealthy food options, a positive implicit evaluation of unhealthy foods may inadvertently influence unhealthy choices. This study investigates if and under which conditions implicit evaluations of unhealthy and healthy foods can be influenced by a computer-based Go/No-Go (GNG) training.

Design

Undergraduate student participants (N = 161 participants; 117 females, 44 males; M_age = 19 years, SD = 2 years) completed a GNG training with two healthy (grape and nut) and two unhealthy (potato chip and cookie) stimuli. Participants were either instructed to inhibit their responses to the potato chip (No-Go Chips/Go Grape) or to a grape (No-Go Grape/Go Chips).

Main Outcome Measure

Implicit evaluations of chips and grapes were assessed using the Extrinsic Affective Simon Task.

Results

This GNG training impacted implicit evaluations of chips, but not grapes. GNG training effects were stronger for participants with lower sensitivity for behavioural inhibition measured with the Behavioural Inhibition System scale.

Conclusion

GNG training might help people change implicit food evaluations. More research is needed to understand how individual and training characteristics affect outcomes with the goal of tailoring and optimising the GNG training to produce the strongest effect.

Keywords:

• Go/No-Go training
• implicit evaluations
• unhealthy food
• behavioural inhibition system (BIS)
• extrinsic affective Simon task (EAST)

Acknowledgements

We express deep gratitude to our research staff for their many contributions to the project: Cynthia Ehlers, Elisabeth C. Goch, and Wei-Yi Chang. Not least of all, we would like to especially thank all of the students participating in the study.

Authors’ contributions

SW, TR, and GO developed the study hypotheses and study design. SW and TR designed data collection tools and developed intervention materials and protocols. SW and TR devised the statistical analysis plan. SW implemented the study. SW and TR performed the data analysis and interpretation. SW, TR, CV, and LM drafted the manuscript, and MJ and GO provided critical revisions. All authors approved the final version of the paper for submission.

Availability of data and materials

The data that support the findings of this study are openly available at https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/8GY6B

Ethics approval

All study procedures were approved by the Institutional Review Boards at NYU (IRB-FY2018-1201). All methods were performed in accordance with the principles stated in the Declaration of Helsinki. Written informed consent was obtained by all participants prior to any data collection.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Funding

This study was supported in part by funding from American Heart Association Postdoctoral Fellowship (Wittleder).