Does liking or wanting determine repeat consumption delay?

Area of Science:

• Behavioral science
• Neuroscience of eating
• Consumer psychology

Background:

• Liking and wanting are distinct but correlated psychological processes influencing consumption.
• Understanding factors that regulate the delay between consumption episodes is key to explaining eating patterns.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate whether liking or wanting predicts the delay between food consumption episodes.
• To determine the relative influence of memory for liking versus wanting on future consumption timing.

Main Methods:

• Experiment 1: Assessed liking and wanting at the end of a consumption experience and tracked subsequent consumption delays.
• Experiment 2: Manipulated the decrease in liking due to repeated consumption to observe its effect on delay.

Main Results:

• Memory for liking, not wanting, significantly predicted the number of days until a food was consumed again.
• Mitigating the decline in liking after repeated consumption removed the effect on consumption delay.

Conclusions:

• End-episode liking, and its memory, is a stronger determinant of future consumption timing than wanting.
• These findings suggest that positive affective experiences significantly influence the regulation of food intake frequency.