Gender differences in liking and wanting sex: examining the role of motivational context and implicit versus explicit processing

The present study investigated the specificity of sexual appraisal processes by making a distinction between implicit and explicit appraisals and between the affective (liking) and motivational (wanting) valence of sexual stimuli. These appraisals are assumed to diverge between men and women, depending on the context in which the sexual stimulus is encountered. Using an Implicit Association Test, explicit ratings, and film clips to prime a sexual, romantic or neutral motivational context, we investigated whether liking and wanting of sexual stimuli differed at the implicit and explicit level, differed between men and women, and were differentially sensitive to context manipulations. Results showed that, at the implicit level, women wanted more sex after being primed with romantic mood whereas men showed the least wanting of sex in the romantic condition. At the explicit level, men reported greater liking and wanting of sex than women, independently of context. We also found that women's (self-reported) sexual behavior was best predicted by the incentive salience of sexual stimuli whereas men's sexual behavior was more closely related to the hedonic qualities of sexual stimuli. Results were discussed in relation to an emotion-motivational account of sexual functioning

Heavy social drinkers score higher on implicit wanting and liking for alcohol than alcohol-dependent patients and light social drinkers

Abstract Background and objectives Automatic hedonic ("liking") and incentive ("wanting") processes are assumed to play an important role in addiction. Whereas some neurobiological theories suggest that these processes become dissociated when drug use develops into an addiction (i.e. "liking" becomes weaker, whereas "wanting" becomes exaggerated; e.g. Robinson & Berridge, 1993), other theories suggest that there is a linear relationship between these two processes (i.e. both "liking" and "wanting" increase equally; e.g. Koob & Le Moal, 1997). Our aim was to examine "wanting" and "liking" in three groups of participants: alcohol-dependent patients, heavy social drinkers, and light social drinkers. Methods Participants performed two different single target implicit association tests (ST-IATs; e.g. Bluemke & Friese, 2007) and explicit ratings that were designed to measure "liking" and "wanting" for alcohol. Results Our results are in sharp contrast with the theories of both Robinson and Berridge and Koob and Le Moal: heavy drinkers had higher scores than light drinkers and alcohol-dependent patients on both the wanting ST-IAT and the liking ST-IAT. There were no differences between alcohol-dependent patients and light drinkers. Explicit ratings mirrored these results. Limitations These findings suggest that our ST-IATs are not valid measures of "wanting" and "liking". Instead, they might assess more complex knowledge regarding participants' experiences and goals. Conclusions These findings suggest that the relationship between drug consumption and appetitive drug associations is not linear, highlighting the importance of testing both sub-clinical and clinical samples in future research.SCOPUS: ar.jinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

Fed Up: Do Diet Violations Affect Implicit and Explicit Wanting and Liking in Restrained Eaters?

Dietary restraint is defined as a tendency to consciously restrict or control food intake. When restrained eaters consume a “forbidden food,” or a preload, they experience a diet violation that often is followed by overeating. The goals of this study were to examine whether the perception of a diet violation influences restrained eaters’ implicit and explicit liking and wanting – and whether their liking and wanting of food stimuli is related to subsequent eating patterns. We recruited female participants (n = 135) who were asked to consume a high calorie milkshake (a preload). Half of the participants were told that the preload was a “high calorie milkshake,” whereas the remaining participants were told that the milkshake was a “low calorie smoothie.” Before and after consuming the milkshake, participants completed a series of tasks that measured their implicit liking (i.e., the Affective Simon Task) and wanting (a forced choice task) of a range of high and low calorie foods. They were also asked to explicitly rate how much they liked and wanted these foods. Finally, they were given a snack to consume to measure changes in consumption as a function of the information they were given about the milkshake. Results demonstrated that perceptions of caloric content of a preload do not affect implicit and explicit liking and wanting in restrained eaters, however it does affect explicit wanting in unrestrained eaters. Moreover, the degree to which unrestrained eaters, but not restrained eaters, consumed a subsequent snack was affected by explicit liking and wanting of high and low calorie food stimuli. These results suggest that restrained eaters’ liking and wanting of foods may be more sensitive to physiological cues than to external information, and the degree to which they like and want foods does not predict their subsequent consumption of a snack

Implicit and explicit attitudes of young people with type 1 diabetes towards high-fat and high-sugar foods

This study examined whether there were differences between the implicit and explicit attitudes of young people with diabetes (n=22) and without diabetes (n=30) towards the fat and sugar content of foods. It also explored whether these attitudes were associated with the healthy eating behaviours of young people with diabetes. The traditional Implicit Association Test (IAT; Greenwald, McGhee & Schwartz, 1998) and the Avoid-Approach IAT (de Houwer, Custers & deClercq, 2006) were respectively used to explore relative implicit liking and wanting for high-fat foods/high-sugar foods over their low-fat alternatives. Results suggest that priming effects based on novel aspects of foods lead to differences in implicit wanting for high-fat foods between groups. Results from the explicit measures suggest that individuals with diabetes are more easily primed by the palatability of foods compared to controls. Implicit preferences for high-fat foods were incongruently related to healthy eating. The limitations of this study and its potential impact on clinical practice are discussed

Testing the validity of implicit measures of wanting and liking

Author version made available in accordance with the publisher's policy for non-mandated open access submission. Under Elsevier's copyright, non-mandated authors are permitted to make work available in an institutional repository.Background and objectives: Over the last decade, there has been a surge of studies examining implicit processes underlying addiction. Some implicit measures are assumed to reflect “liking” whereas other implicit measures are assumed to reflect “wanting”. There is, however, little evidence to back up this claim. We examined whether implicit and explicit measures of wanting and of liking are differentially sensitive to manipulations of wanting and expected that these manipulations would affect primarily measures of wanting. Methods: Smokers and non-smokers performed both implicit and explicit measures that are assumed to assess wanting and liking for nicotine. Smokers were tested once immediately after smoking, and once after 12 hours of nicotine-deprivation. Results: IAT results suggested that smokers showed more implicit liking for nicotine when they were deprived than when they were satiated, whereas there were no differences in wanting. Smokers also seemed to show both more implicit wanting and more implicit liking for nicotine compared to non-smokers. Explicit measures did yield the expected results in that smokers reported to want nicotine more when they were deprived, whereas there were smaller differences in liking. Conclusions: We found little support for the assumption that implicit measures of wanting and liking capture different processes. Researchers should thus be cautious in drawing conclusions about wanting and liking on the basis of these measures

Building a Culture of Hope: Exploring Implicit Biases Against Poverty

A Culture of Hope provides a blueprint for schools wanting to meet the social/emotional needs of youth at risk. In working with staff to develop cultures of hope, the influence of implicit biases and prejudices about people who are living in poverty must be addressed. This essay introduces information and research about implicit biases, illustrates the impact of implicit biases on teaching and learning, and shares strategies for raising awareness about implicit biases against poverty in order to build staff consensus around core beliefs and values

Implicit measures of “wanting” and “liking” in humans

Incentive Sensitization Theory (IST; e.g., Robinson and Berridge, 1993. Brain Res. Rev., 18, 291; Robinson and Berridge, 2003 Trends Neurosci., 26, 507) suggests that a common dopamine system that deals with incentive salience attribution is affected by different types of drugs. Repeated drug use will sensitize this neural system, which means that drugs increasingly trigger the experience of incentive salience or "wanting". Importantly, Robinson and Berridge stress that there is a dissociation between drug "wanting" (the unconscious attribution of incentive salience) and drug "liking" (the unconscious hedonic experience when one consumes drugs). Whereas the former plays an essential role in the development and maintenance of drug addiction, the latter does not. Although this model was based mainly on research with non-human animals, more recently the dissociation between "wanting" and "liking" has been examined in humans as well. A widely used and promising means of studying these processes are behavioral implicit measures such as the Implicit Association Test (IAT), the Approach-Avoidance Task (AAT), different types of Stimulus-Response Compatibility (SRC) tasks, and Affective Simon Tasks (AST).IST makes the clear prediction that (1) there should be a positive correlation between indices of "wanting" (e.g., drug consumption) and implicit "wanting" scores. Similarly, there should be a positive correlation between indices of "liking" (e.g., various expressions of subjective pleasure) and implicit "liking" scores; (2) there should be higher "wanting" scores in substance abusers or frequent substance users compared to non-users or infrequent users, and there should be no differences in "liking" between these groups (or even less "liking" in frequent substance users); (3) manipulations of "wanting" should affect implicit "wanting" scores whereas manipulations of "liking" should affect implicit "liking" scores. However, studies that tested these hypotheses did not produce equivocal results. To shed light on these discrepancies, we first discuss the different definitions of "wanting" and "liking" and the different tests that have been used to assess these processes. Then, we discuss whether it is reasonable to assume that these tests are valid measures of "wanting" and "liking" and we review correlational, quasi-experimental, and experimental studies that inform us about this issue. Finally, we discuss the future potential of implicit measures in research on IST and make several recommendations to improve both theory and methodology

Fasting leptin is a metabolic determinant of food reward in overweight and obese individuals during chronic aerobic exercise training

Changes in food reward have been implicated in exercise-induced compensatory eating behaviour. However, the underlying mechanisms of food reward, and the physiological correlates of exercise-induced changes in food reward, are unknown. Methods. Forty-six overweight and obese individuals completed 12 weeks of aerobic exercise. Body composition, food intake, and fasting metabolic-related hormones were measured at baseline, week six, and postintervention. On separate days, the reward value of high-and-low-fat food (explicit liking and implicit wanting) was also assessed at baseline, week six, and postintervention. Results. Following the intervention, FM, FFM, and V O 2 peak improved significantly, while fasting leptin decreased. However, food intake or reward did not change significantly. Cross-sectional analyses indicated that FM (P = 0.022) and FFM (P = 0.046) were associated with explicit liking for high-fat food, but implicit wanting was associated with FM only (P = 0.005). Fasting leptin was associated with liking (P = 0.023) and wanting (P = 0.021) for high-fat food. Furthermore, a greater exercise-induced decline in fasting leptin was associated with increased liking (P = 0.018). Conclusion. These data indicate that food reward has a number of physiological correlates. In particular, fasting leptin appears to play an active role in mediating food reward during exercise-induced weight loss. © 2014 Mark Hopkins et al