The Sweet Life: The Effect of Mindful Chocolate Consumption on Mood

Roles

Student Authors:

Sabrina W. Noll '14, Gettysburg College

Oluwatobi J. Molokwu '17, Gettysburg College

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1-1-2017

Department 1

Psychology

Abstract

Chocolate consumption is anecdotally associated with an increase in happiness, but little experimental work has examined this effect. We combined a food type manipulation (chocolate vs. crackers) with a mindfulness manipulation (mindful consumption vs. non-mindful consumption) and examined the impact on positive mood. Participants (N = 258) were randomly assigned to eat a small portion (75 calories) of chocolate or a control food (crackers) in a mindful or non-mindful way. Participants who were instructed to mindfully eat chocolate had a greater increase in positive mood compared to participants who were instructed to eat chocolate non-mindfully or crackers either mindfully or non-mindfully. Additional analyses revealed that self-reported liking of the food partially mediated this effect. Chocolate appears to increase positive mood, but particularly when it is eaten mindfully.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.

DOI

10.1016/j.appet.2016.09.018

Required Publisher's Statement

Original version available from publisher at http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0195666316304664

Link to Full Text

Share

COinS