Archived at the Flinders Academic Commons:
http://dspace.flinders.edu.au/dspace/
This is the authors’ version of an article published in
Psychology & Health. The original publication is available
by subscription at:
http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/gpsh20#.VDNwkRD6SUQ
doi:10.1080/08870446.2014.918267
Please cite this article as:
Kemps, E., Tiggemann, M., & Hollitt, S. (2014). Exposure to
television food advertising primes food-related cognitions
and triggers motivation to eat. Psychology & Health, 29,
1192-1205.
Copyright (2014) Taylor & Francis. All rights reserved.
Please note that any alterations made during the
publishing process may not appear in this version.
This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published in
Psychology and Health on 21 May 2014, available online:
http://
www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/08870446.2014.918267
Running Head: TELEVISION ADVERTISING, FOOD COGNITIONS AND MOTIVATION TO EAT 1
Exposure to Television Food Advertising Primes Food-Related
Cognitions and Triggers Motivation to Eat
Eva Kemps, Marika Tiggemann and Sarah Hollitt
School of Psychology, Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Eva Kemps, School of
Psychology, Flinders University, GPO Box 2100, Adelaide, SA 5001, Australia. Electronic
mail may be sent to Eva.Kemps@flinders.edu.au
TELEVISION ADVERTISING, FOOD COGNITIONS AND MOTIVATION TO EAT
2
Abstract
Objective: This study investigated the effect of exposure to television food advertising on
accessibility of food-related cognitions and motivation to eat.
Design and Main Outcome Measures: We initially developed a word stem completion task
to measure accessibility of food-related cognitions. In two subsequent experiments, 160
female undergraduate students (Experiment 1) and 124 overweight or obese community-
dwelling women (Experiment 2) viewed a series of television commercials advertising either
food or non-food products. They then completed the word stem task and also rated their
desire to eat.
Results: Exposure to televised food advertisements led to the completion of word stems with
more food- and eating-related words in both experiments. It also increased self-reported
desire to eat, but only for overweight and obese individuals (Experiment 2). In both samples,
there was a positive association between accessibility of food-related cognitions and
reported desire to eat following priming with television food advertisements.
Conclusion: We conclude that an increased activation of food-related cognitions may
provide a mechanism for the link between food advertising and consumption. This has
implications for tackling pathological (over)eating.
Keywords: television food advertising; priming; food cognitions; motivation to eat; word
stem completion task; obesity
TELEVISION ADVERTISING, FOOD COGNITIONS AND MOTIVATION TO EAT
3
Exposure to Television Food Advertising Primes Food-Related Cognitions and Triggers
Motivation to Eat
There is an abundance of food cues in contemporary Western environments. We are
continually exposed to images of food and eating – in shops, restaurants and fast food outlets,
as well as through advertising in magazines, on bill-boards, public transport and most notably
television. Approximately a third to half of all television advertisements are for food
(Chapman, Nicholas & Supramaniam, 2006; Powell, Szczypka, Frank & Chaloupka, 2007).
Of these, the majority are for unhealthy food, that is, food high in fat, sugar and/or salt with
little nutritional value. This intense advertising of unhealthy food has been linked to the
(over)consumption of such food. Indeed, recent studies show that exposure to television
advertisements promoting snack foods increases snack food intake in both adults and children
(Halford, Gillespie, Brown, Pontin & Dovey, 2004; Harris, Bargh & Brownell, 2009). Food
advertising stimulates people’s desire to eat and motivation to act (i.e., consume) (Cohen,
2008). However, the mechanism by which food advertising increases consumption remains
unclear.
One possibility is that food advertising activates thoughts, or cognitions, about food
and eating, which then trigger a corresponding motivation to eat. A number of priming
studies have shown that pre-exposing participants to food cues increases the accessibility of
food-related cognitions on a subsequent task (Papies, Stroebe & Aarts, 2007, 2008). More
recent investigations have linked this activation of food-related cognitions to an increased
motivation to consume. In particular, Hofmann, van Koningsbruggen, Stroebe, Ramanathan
and Aarts (2010a) found a positive correlation between accessibility of food-related
cognitions following pre-exposure to food cues and self-reported desire to eat. van
Koningsbruggen, Stroebe and Aarts (2013) further showed that participants for whom food
priming had activated food-related cognitions worked harder to earn food rewards. Priming
TELEVISION ADVERTISING, FOOD COGNITIONS AND MOTIVATION TO EAT
4
effects on cognitive accessibility and motivational processes have also been shown for other
behaviours, including academic achievement, weight management and athleticism (Ferguson,
2008; Ferguson & Bargh, 2004; Fishbach, Friedman & Kruglanksi, 2003).
Taken together, these findings suggest that exposure to environmental food cues may
contribute to (over)eating because such cues trigger food-related cognitions and a
corresponding motivation to eat. The aim of the present study was to investigate the effect of
exposure to food advertising on the cognitive and motivational processing of food- and
eating-related information. Thus, unlike previous priming studies where food primes
consisted of food or eating-related words or sentences, often presented subliminally, we
exposed participants to real world food primes, in this case, televised food advertisements.
Specifically, we investigated whether exposure to television food advertising primes food-
related cognitions and triggers a motivation to eat.
According to Hofmann, Friese and Strack (2009), thoughts about food and eating
often occur spontaneously and without awareness, and thus are best captured by indirect
measures. Previous priming studies have assessed accessibility of food-related cognitions by
indirect measures such as the lexical decision task (Fishbach et al., 2003; Papies et al., 2007;
van Koningsbruggen et al., 2013), the dot probe task (Papies et al., 2008), the automatic-
attitude task (Ferguson, 2008) and the affect-misattribution procedure (Hofmann et al.,
2010a). These tasks require computerised equipment, and can only be individually
administered. To circumvent these issues, we developed a word stem completion task,
parallel to the one created by Tiggemann, Hargreaves, Polivy and McFarlane (2004) as an
indirect measure of appearance- and weight schema activation. Completing word stems is a
simple, straightforward task that requires no specialised equipment, and can be administered
in a group setting. Unlike some of the tasks listed above (lexical decision task, affect-
misattribution procedure), it has the added benefit that it does not prime the to-be-measured
