Effect of interpersonal conflicts and the moderating effect of the dispositional need to belong on binge eating.

The dispositional need to belong (dNTB) is a stable desire to connect with others and belong to groups. Recently, it has been stated that dNTB can alter immediate post-interpersonal conflict behavior. Interpersonal conflict stress is one of the triggers of binge eating. An individual's vulnerability to binge eating in response to interpersonal conflicts before it becomes a disorder has not been investigated from the perspective of the interaction between interpersonal conflict and dNTB. We conducted two studies examining the relationships between interpersonal conflicts and dNTB and the frequency of binge eating behavior in daily life. Conflicting predictions have been made about whether people with a high dNTB eat more after interpersonal conflict than those with a low dNTB. In Study 1, 199 university students answered the survey concerning their dNTB and frequency of interpersonal conflict and binge eating. The results revealed that higher dNTB is associated with more frequent binge eating when individuals face interpersonal conflict. In Study 2, 416 adults throughout Japan participated in the same survey; the results replicated those from Study 1. For exploratory purposes, mental health and other eating behaviors (restrained, emotional, and external eating) were measured in Studies 1 and 2, respectively. However, the moderation effects of dNTB on these eating behaviors were not observed. Previous studies suggested that individuals with a low dNTB ate more in response to social exclusion. This might be due to an immediate interpersonal stress reaction to social exclusion. Conversely, this study's results implicate that the modulation effects of dNTB on excessive eating habits are different from those immediately following interpersonal conflict.

Dispositional need to belong and increased eating after social exclusion.

Social exclusion affects the fundamental needs of individuals, and their coping behavior is moderated by their dispositional need to belong. Eating can be one such behavior. However, it is unclear how people with a higher or lower dispositional need to belong respond with respect to food consumption in response to social exclusion. Thus, this study aims to investigate which of these groups eat more food after social exclusion. Ninety-seven university students in Japan participated in two types of Cyberball games (where they either experienced social exclusion or social inclusion) in which their social exclusion status was manipulated. They subsequently participated in a test in which they ate as many cookies as they desired. Finally, they answered questions about their dispositional need to belong. Their BMI was also recorded. Results showed that when socially excluded, individuals with a low need to belong increased their consumption, while those with a high need to belong did not. We suggest that people with a lower need to belong are more inclined to focus on goals other than inclusion and instead use eating as a coping mechanism.

Curiosity about a positive or negative event prolongs the duration of emotional experience.

Some researchers claim that uncertainty prolongs the duration of emotional experiences because uncertainty toward an emotion-eliciting event prolongs attention to that event. However, some results contradict this claim. We assumed that curiosity rather than uncertainty prolongs the duration of emotional experience via attention, and that attention and emotional experience are prolonged only when uncertainty elicits curiosity. This assumption is based on the information gap theory, which proposes that curiosity increases with uncertainty, but that curiosity decreases at a certain level of uncertainty. We conducted a survey study to investigate the relationships among curiosity, uncertainty, attention and duration of positive and negative emotional experiences. The results showed that curiosity, but not uncertainty, prolonged the duration of emotional experiences and the process was completely mediated by attention both for positive and negative emotions. Moreover, uncertainty prolonged the duration of emotional experiences only when uncertainty elicited curiosity, which in turn prolonged attention to the emotion-eliciting event.