Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of attentional bias on the threatening of food choice for individuals with orthorexic tendencies. During the beginning of the study, 30 participants with orthorexic tendencies and 30 participants without orthorexic tendencies were selected. The subjects were randomly assigned to one of four experimental conditions, according to the existence of orthorexic tendencies and stimuli types. Threatening stimuli consisted of words which were relevant to physical health or had ego-threatening effects, and neutral stimuli consisted of words without any attached emotional effect. After stroop test with threatening and neutral stimuli conditions, the individual’s approach to healthy food was measured through food choice tasks and voucher task choices. As a result, the healthy food approach of the group with orthorexic tendencies was higher than that of the normal group, when presented with threatening and neutral conditions. Specifically, individuals with orthorexic tendencies tended to approach healthy food significantly more, after having experienced threatening conditions as opposed to neutral conditions. These results indicate that individuals with orthorexic tendencies tend to have more rigid food choice when they are placed within a stressful situation. Finally, the implications and limitations pf the study were discussed, and directions for future study are presented.