Hot or not? The influence of the visceral state of hunger and self-efficacy on the formulation of implementation intention plans in order to lose weight.

Abstract

Current study aimed to examine the influence of the visceral state of hunger and the enhancement of self-efficacy, on the formulation of implementation intention plans in order to lose weight. It was hypothesized that people in the hot state were able to formulate qualitative better implementation intention plans regarding weight loss than people in the cold state. In addition, it was expected that enhancement of self-efficacy lead to the qualitatively better formulated implementation intention plans. In this experimental study 97 participants were part of the experiment and were asked to fill out an inquiry. Unfortunately, no evidence was found to support the predictions. It seems that the visceral state of hunger and the enhancement of self-efficacy do not affect the formulation of implementation intention plans in order to lose weight. The coding scheme used to assess the quality of implementation intention plans and the exercise via mental simulation in which the plans were formulated, can account for not finding support for the predictions.