Feelings of ease and attitudes toward healthy foods

The successful impact of health campaigns often depends on the extent to which interventions are effective in changing attitudes. The goal of the present research was to examine to what extent the ease adolescents experience in generating thoughts can influence persuasion in the domain of a health-relevant topic.

Participants were asked to generate either positive or negative thoughts about the Mediterranean diet. The spontaneous feeling of ease with which participants generated those thoughts was assessed for each participant. The impact of these two independent variables on attitudes toward the Mediterranean diet was examined.

Participants who reported relatively higher (vs. lower) subjective ease experiences in the thought-listing task showed a greater effect of thought direction on attitudes toward the diet.

This study demonstrates the importance of considering not only the thoughts people have with regard to health but also the subjective experiences and metacognitive feelings associated with those thoughts.