Indirect (implicit) and direct (explicit) self-esteem measures are virtually unrelated: A meta-analysis of the initial preference task.

BACKGROUND: The initial preference task (IPT) is an implicit measure that has featured prominently in the literature and enjoys high popularity because it offers to provide an unobtrusive and objective assessment of self-esteem that is easy to administer. However, its use for self-esteem assessment may be limited because of weak associations with direct personality measures. Moreover, moderator effects of sample- and study-related variables need investigation to determine the value of IPT-based assessments of self-esteem. METHODS: Conventional and grey-literature database searches, as well as screening of reference lists of obtained articles, yielded a total of 105 independent healthy adult samples (N = 17,777) originating from 60 studies. Summary effect estimates and subgroup analyses for potential effect moderators (e.g., administration order, algorithm, rating type) were calculated by means of meta-analytic random- and mixed-effects models. Moreover, we accounted for potential influences of publication year, publication status (published vs. not), and participant sex in a weighted stepwise hierarchical multiple meta-regression. We tested for dissemination bias through six methods. RESULTS: There was no noteworthy correlation between IPT-based implicit and explicit self-esteem (r = .102), indicating conceptual independence of these two constructs. Effects were stronger when the B-algorithm was used for calculation of IPT-scores and the IPT was administered only once, whilst all other moderators did not show significant influences. Regression analyses revealed a somewhat stronger (albeit non-significant) effect for men. Moreover, there was no evidence for dissemination bias or a decline effect, although effects from published studies were numerically somewhat stronger than unpublished effects. DISCUSSION: We show that there is no noteworthy association between IPT-based implicit and explicit self-esteem, which is broadly consistent with dual-process models of implicit and explicit evaluations on the one hand, but also casts doubt on the suitability of the IPT for the assessment of implicit self-esteem on the other hand.

Playing with food: The effects of food pre-exposure on consumption in young children.

Recent research has shown that pre-exposure to food can lead to reduced subsequent consumption in older children and adults when they focus on a task with a non-eating goal during exposure. One assumption is that the reduced consumption is a consequence of self-regulation that helps to concentrate on the task. Because self-regulatory mechanisms are still under development in young children, we studied the effects of food pre-exposure in young children under the age of six (N = 81). Children played a memory game with real sweets (food pre-exposure) or similar non-food stimuli (non-food pre-exposure) and we measured their subsequent food consumption. In contrast to the findings with older children in other studies, we found that pre-exposure led to an increase (not a decrease) in subsequent consumption. This effect was stronger among children with a higher BMI. Food exposure paradigms might not lead to the desired reduction in food intake in young children, whose BMI is positively associated with food reactivity. Thus, food exposure must continue to be considered a strong risk factor for obesity in young children.

Eyes wide shopped: shopping situations trigger arousal in impulsive buyers.

The present study proposes arousal as an important mechanism driving buying impulsiveness. We examined the effect of buying impulsiveness on arousal in non-shopping and shopping contexts. In an eye-tracking experiment, we measured pupil dilation while participants viewed and rated pictures of shopping scenes and non-shopping scenes. The results demonstrated that buying impulsiveness is closely associated with arousal as response to viewing pictures of shopping scenes. This pertained for hedonic shopping situations as well as for utilitarian shopping situations. Importantly, the effect did not emerge for non-shopping scenes. Furthermore, we demonstrated that arousal of impulsive buyers is independent from cognitive evaluation of scenes in the pictures.