Neuroscience
Health experts say we aren't eating enough fruit. Perhaps psychology can help. Try this. Picture yourself eating a portion of fruit tomorrow - an apple, say, or a couple of plums. Take your time. Focus on the colours, the consistency, the flavour. Visualise where you are at the time, and what you are doing.
Do you think this simple imagery task will have increased the likelihood you will eat fruit tomorrow? A new study led by Catherine Adams attempted to find out. Over two hundred volunteers were split into three groups. One performed the fruit imagery task, another group did the same thing but for a biscuit bar of their choice (examples they were given included flapjacks, Kellogg's Elevenses and Jaffa Cake bars), and a final group did not perform an imagery task.
Straight after, the participants answered questions about their food preferences, future consumption intentions, and they were offered a reward from a basket of fruits and biscuit bars. Two days later they were also asked by email whether they had any eaten fruit or a biscuit bar the day before (35 per cent of them answered this).
Once the researchers controlled for background factors (such as the possibility there were more fruit lovers in one condition or the other), they found that the fruit imagery task made no difference to participants' intentions to eat fruit, no difference to their choice of fruit as a reward, nor their consumption of fruit the next day, as compared with the control group who didn't perform the imagery. For the biscuit bar group, the imagery task increased their intentions to eat biscuit bars in the future, but didn't actually alter their consumption (as compared against the no-imagery control group).
"These effects suggest different effects for different visualised behaviours," the researchers said. "Further investigation is needed before recommending visualisation for increasing fruit consumption."
As the researchers' acknowledged, there are some issues with the study that mean caution is needed in interpreting the results. For instance, just one brief imagery session may well be inadequate. Also, other research suggests imagery works best when combined with other strategies, such as "if-then" implementation plans (e.g. If I am hungry, then I will snack on some fruit). The response rate to the follow-up email was also disappointing, and bear in mind that participants may have felt the food they chose immediately after the imagery was a form of reward, and therefore this behaviour may not reflect their usual eating choices. These issues show how difficult health behaviour research can be.
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Adams C, Rennie L, Uskul AK, and Appleton KM (2013). Visualising future behaviour: Effects for snacking on biscuit bars, but no effects for snacking on fruit. Journal of health psychology PMID: 24217063
--Further reading--
The Digest guide to willpower
Less is more when it comes to beating bad habits
If-then plans help protect us from the 'to hell with it' effect
The mindbus technique for resisting chocolate - should we climb aboard?
Post written by Christian Jarrett (@psych_writer) for the BPS Research Digest.
- Good News And Bad For A Popular Willpower-enhancing Strategy
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Neuroscience
Does picturing yourself eating fruit increase your fruit intake?
Do you think this simple imagery task will have increased the likelihood you will eat fruit tomorrow? A new study led by Catherine Adams attempted to find out. Over two hundred volunteers were split into three groups. One performed the fruit imagery task, another group did the same thing but for a biscuit bar of their choice (examples they were given included flapjacks, Kellogg's Elevenses and Jaffa Cake bars), and a final group did not perform an imagery task.
Straight after, the participants answered questions about their food preferences, future consumption intentions, and they were offered a reward from a basket of fruits and biscuit bars. Two days later they were also asked by email whether they had any eaten fruit or a biscuit bar the day before (35 per cent of them answered this).
Once the researchers controlled for background factors (such as the possibility there were more fruit lovers in one condition or the other), they found that the fruit imagery task made no difference to participants' intentions to eat fruit, no difference to their choice of fruit as a reward, nor their consumption of fruit the next day, as compared with the control group who didn't perform the imagery. For the biscuit bar group, the imagery task increased their intentions to eat biscuit bars in the future, but didn't actually alter their consumption (as compared against the no-imagery control group).
"These effects suggest different effects for different visualised behaviours," the researchers said. "Further investigation is needed before recommending visualisation for increasing fruit consumption."
As the researchers' acknowledged, there are some issues with the study that mean caution is needed in interpreting the results. For instance, just one brief imagery session may well be inadequate. Also, other research suggests imagery works best when combined with other strategies, such as "if-then" implementation plans (e.g. If I am hungry, then I will snack on some fruit). The response rate to the follow-up email was also disappointing, and bear in mind that participants may have felt the food they chose immediately after the imagery was a form of reward, and therefore this behaviour may not reflect their usual eating choices. These issues show how difficult health behaviour research can be.
_________________________________
Adams C, Rennie L, Uskul AK, and Appleton KM (2013). Visualising future behaviour: Effects for snacking on biscuit bars, but no effects for snacking on fruit. Journal of health psychology PMID: 24217063
--Further reading--
The Digest guide to willpower
Less is more when it comes to beating bad habits
If-then plans help protect us from the 'to hell with it' effect
The mindbus technique for resisting chocolate - should we climb aboard?
Post written by Christian Jarrett (@psych_writer) for the BPS Research Digest.
- Good News And Bad For A Popular Willpower-enhancing Strategy
In rich countries, temptation is never far and many of us struggle to achieve our long-term aims of moderation, dedication and fidelity. An increasingly popular strategy for regaining control is to form so-called implementation intentions. Rather than...
- Why It's So Hard To Find A Blue Banana
We like to think we see things how they are. Often, however, what we actually see is based less on the outside world and more on what our brain expects to be there, like a kind of mentally-generated virtual reality. Now psychologists in Germany have demonstrated...
- A New Approach To Help Those Who Hear Voices
When it comes to the ‘positive’ symptoms of schizophrenia, such as hearing voices, cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) has mostly be used to help reduce the distress and burden that they can cause. But now Jerome Favrod and colleagues in Switzerland...
- The Trouble With Tephritidae
A True Fruit Fly - Tephritidae (via Myrmecos Blog) Bjoern Brembs has written extensively about the latest anti-science commentary by VP candidate Sarah Palin, who said... Where does a lot of that earmark money end up anyway? […] You've heard about...
- Tampax Begins New Marketing Campaign
Now here's something unexpected... Fruit bats discovered to have menstrual cycles Scientists have discovered that a type of fruit bat menstruate in a similar way to women They say their findings – published in this month's issue of key journal...