Revisiting ‘emotional eating’: retrospective overestimation of negative affect as a post-hoc justification for overeating

Abstract

Background: Emotional eating (overeating in response to negative emotions) is a widely accepted explanation for eating behaviors that are not in line with personal eating-norms. However, evidence for a causal link between negative emotions and overeating is lacking. In the present studies it was hypothesized that rather than predicting norm-violating eating behaviors, negative emotions are retrospectively ‘blamed’ for this violation. Methods: Employing an experimental design, Study 1 (N = 46) and Study 2 (N = 60) examined how students who participated in a taste-test retrospectively assessed negative affect (NA) after having received feedback that they ate too much (norm-violation condition) or an acceptable amount of food (control condition). Both studies also assessed current NA and restraint eating. Findings: In both studies, retrospective NA strongly correlated with current NA in the norm-violation condition, but not in the control condition. In addition, participants who scored high on eating restraint overestimated NA, whereas participants who scored low underestimated NA. Discussion: These findings suggest that NA resulting from norm violation motivates people to justify their eating behavior, especially when overeating constitutes a personal norm-violation.