SELF-ESTEEM AS A BETTER PREDICTOR OF RESTRAINED EATERS FOOD-INTAKE THAN ATTRIBUTIONAL STYLE AND DISINHIBITION TENDENCY

In the present study, a weight increase or decrease was experimentally , manipulated in restrained and unrestrained eating subjects. It was h ypothesized that restrained earing subjects in the high-weight conditi on will attribute the cause of this important negative event to intern al, stable, and global factors. Such a depressogenic attributional sty le was expected to be reflected in a more depressed mood which, in its turn, should trigger disinhibitive eating during a bogus taste test. Moreover, it was hypothesized that high scores on Zuckerman's disinhib ition subscale and low self-esteem were related to larger food intake. Main findings were that a manipulated weight increase indeed lowered the mood of restrained eaters, whereas it had no effect on the moon of unrestrained eaters. However, the weight increase and the moon decrea se of restrained subjects in the high-weight condition were not reflec ted in a more depressive attributional style and increased food intake . Level of self-esteem appeared to be the best and only predictor of r estrained eaters' food intake with lower-self-esteem subjects eating l ess during the taste test. Moreover, although the restrained subjects scored significantly higher on a general measure of disinhibition than the unrestrained ones, disinhibition was not a very strong predictor of food intake. (C) 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.