The Effectiveness of Attentional Bias Modification Food-Related Stimuli and Food Craving in Dieters

Repeated diet failure leading to lowered self-esteem, a sense of guilt and even self-hatred. Studies have suggested that attentional biases for food cues may play an essential role in the development and the maintenance of maladaptive eating behaviors. This research aimed to investigate the effectiveness of attentional bias modification Food-Related stimuli and food craving in dieters. The method was quasi-experimental with two-group pretest-posttest design. 30 people were selected based on the inclusion criteria and were randomly assigned to the two groups of experiment and control. The experimental group received the intervention attentional bias modification training. To measure attentional bias and interventions Dot-probe task test (MacLeod et al, 1986) and to measure food craving, Food Craving Questionnaire (Cepeda-Benito, 2000) were used respectively. The results indicated that there was a significant difference between two groups in attention bias and food craving in the pre-test and post-test. The results also showed that there was a significant difference between the experimental and control groups in the dimensions of intention and planning to consume food, anticipation of positive reinforcement, anticipation of relief from negative feelings, lack of control over eating, thoughts or preoccupation with food, emotions before or during food craving and guilt from craving (P<0/05).