اثرات مدل سازی خویشتن داری غذایی بر مصرف مواد غذایی: آیا مدل های محدود ترویج رژیم غذایی محدود می کنند؟

Sixty-nine female undergraduates completed the restraint scale, a dieting checklist, and the Eating Attribution Style Questionnaire (EASQ). The participants were exposed either to no model, a peer model who behaviorally demonstrated dietary restraint, or a peer model who behaviorally and verbally demonstrated dietary restraint. The participants had an opportunity to consume food as part of a taste test. The findings revealed that attribution style, but not restraint or current dieting status, moderated the effects of exposure to the peer models. Females who had an internal attribution style for indulgent food consumption decreased their consumption of food as a function of the dietary restraint of the models, whereas females who had an external attribution style for indulgent food consumption increased their consumption of food as a function of the dietary restraint of the models. The latter disinhibitory effect was attributed to negative social comparison and learned helplessness. The results supported the conclusion that the effectiveness of modeling dietary restraint is dependent on the attribution style of the observers.

Social comparison is a process that affects females' body image and attempts to control their weight (Roth, Herman, Polivy, & Pliner, 2001). Females often compare themselves with the ideal thin women depicted in the media Cusumano & Thompson, 1997 and Kalonder, 1997 and to the body shapes and eating patterns of peers (Roth et al., 2001). With respect to the latter, studies have shown that females consumed more food when exposed to a peer model who had consumed a large than small amount of food (e.g., Polivy, Herman, Younger, & Erskine, 1979). The present study was designed to examine whether (a) exposure to a peer model who behaviorally, as well as verbally, demonstrates dietary restraint results in the inhibition of food consumption and (b) individual differences in dietary restraint and attribution styles for food consumption moderate those effects.