Cognitive Reappraisal Reduces the Influence of Threat on Food Craving

Abstract

Cognitive reappraisal is perhaps the most researched emotion regulation strategy. It involves reinterpreting emotional content to reduce its impact. While many studies have demonstrated that cognitive reappraisal reduces negative affect, the utility of cognitive reappraisal in buffering against the consequences of negative affect on subsequent behaviors and attitudes is not clear. To address this issue, the present study assessed whether cognitive reappraisal mitigates the influence of immediate threat on food craving. In Experiment 1, 80 women performed a novel combination of a cognitive reappraisal task with a food-rating task. Participants were exposed to threat-provoking or neutral images and were instructed to either reappraise or observe the images. Subsequently, they rated their desire to eat different types of foods. As expected, the desire to eat decreased after exposure to threat-provoking content. However, after reappraising the threat-provoking images, the desire to eat increased relative to when participants merely observed these images. These results were replicated in Experiment 2 (N = 46) which also showed that the effect of reappraisal on the desire to eat was fully mediated by the subjective emotional reactions to the threat-provoking content. These findings show that cognitive reappraisal can modulate links between emotion and food craving by buffering against the consequences of negative affect on basic human processes.