Approach-motivated positive affect and emotion regulation alter global–local focus and food choice

This study was designed to investigate how both the experience of approach-motivated positive affect and emotion regulation alter attentional focus and food choice. Participants were randomly assigned to one of three groups. Participants in the neutral group were asked to view a series of images that depicted everyday, non-emotional items. Participants in the other two groups viewed a series of images depicting appetizing desserts. One of these groups was asked to naturally view the dessert images, whereas the other group was instructed to reappraise their emotional responses to the delicious desserts (by thinking of the desserts’ negative qualities). Following exposure to the images, data were collected from participants (N = 115) in each of the three groups on global–local focus and subsequent snack selections. Compared to participants in the neutral group, participants who naturally viewed the dessert images evidenced a more local attentional focus on Navon’s (Cognit Psychol 9(3):353–383, 1977) letters task. Relative to those who naturally viewed the dessert images, participants asked to reappraise (down-regulate) to the dessert images evidenced a more global attentional focus and took significantly more healthy compared to unhealthy snacks. This is the first evidence indicating that the use of emotion regulation can alter the impact of approach motivated stimuli on subsequent global–local focus and eating behavior.