Carolien Martijn

Maastricht University | UM · Department of Clinical Psychological Science

The Functionality Appreciation Scale (FAS; Alleva et al., 2017) measures functionality appreciation, the extent to which people appreciate their body for what it is able to do. We translated the FAS to Dutch and evaluated its factor structure and psychometric properties among 471 native Dutch speakers in the Netherlands (255 cisgender women, 204 ci...

Binge eating disorder (BED) and bulimia nervosa (BN) are characterized by recurrent binge eating, episodes of consuming large amounts of food in a discrete period of time associated with a loss of control. Implementation intentions are explicit if-then plans that engender goal-directed action, and rely less on cognitive control than standard treatm...

Objective: Binge-eating disorder (BED) and bulimia nervosa (BN) are characterised by binge eating. Changing unwanted behaviour is difficult, as intentions do not automatically lead to action. Implementation intentions (IIs) may help bridging the gap between intentions and behaviour. IIs are 'if-then' plans promoting goal attainment. Effects are mo...

We conducted one-on-one interviews with 25 Canadian cisgender women who self-identified as having (a) a condition or characteristic causing their body to deviate from societal norms and (b) overcome a negative body image to develop a positive body image. Using coding reliability thematic analyses, we identified 12 themes (italicised) involving proc...

This study investigated a novel technique to improve body image among women who have undergone bariatric surgery: Namely, by having them focus on their body functionality (everything the body can do, rather than how it looks). Participants were 103 women (Mage = 46.61) who had undergone bariatric surgery 5-7 months prior to the study. They were ran...

The core ideas of a 10-year research program ‘New Science of Mental Disorders’ are outlined. This research program moves away from the disorder-based ‘one-model-fits-all’ approach to treating mental disorders, and adopts the network approach to psychopathology as its foundation of research. Its core assumption is that dynamically interacting sympto...

Binge eating disorder (BED) and bulimia nervosa (BN) are characterized by binge eating. Frequently related to negative affect, binge eating is considered unwanted eating behavior. It is often preceded by a shift away from the goal of a healthy eating pattern. Implementation intentions are ‘if-then’ plans that may prevent such shifts in goals. In a...

This study investigated death reflection as a novel strategy to improve body image among women. Young adult women (N = 158; M age = 21.35) completed a death reflection exercise, a death-related active control exercise (to ensure that effects were due to the manner in which women reflected on their death, rather than due to thoughts about death in g...

The aim of this study was to explore the themes that emerge when individuals are asked to describe their body functionality, and those that emerge when individuals are asked to describe their physical appearance. Data were gathered from undergraduate women and men's (N = 75, Mage = 20.66) responses to a writing exercise (Alleva et al., 2014), where...

This chapter concerns body functionality: everything that the body can do, encompassing body functions related to (a) physical capacities (e.g., flexibility), (b) internal processes (e.g., digesting food), (c) bodily senses and perception (e.g., sight), (d) creative endeavors (e.g., playing an instrument), (e) communication with others (e.g., body...

This chapter concerns body functionality: everything that the body can do, encompassing body functions related to (a) physical capacities (e.g., flexibility), (b) internal processes (e.g., digesting food), (c) bodily senses and perception (e.g., sight), (d) creative endeavours (e.g., playing an instrument), (e) communication with others (e.g., body...

Objective: The aim was to investigate whether a computer-based evaluative conditioning intervention improves body image in adolescents with an eating disorder. Positive effects were found in earlier studies in healthy female students in a laboratory and a field setting. This study is the first to test evaluative conditioning in a clinical sample un...

Focusing on body functionality is a promising technique for improving women’s body image. This study replicates prior research in a large novel sample, tests longer-term follow-up effects, and investigates underlying mechanisms of these effects (body complexity and body-self integration). British women (N = 261) aged 18-30 who wanted to improve the...

Women with a more negative body evaluation perceive that their body is associated with more negative social feedback. This covariation bias could reinforce negative body evaluation. We investigated whether covariation bias could be diminished and explored the potential roles of outcome aversiveness and interpretation of negative social feedback ass...

Cognitive effort and self-control are exhausting. Although evidence is ambiguous, behavioural studies have repeatedly suggested that control-demanding tasks seem to deplete a limited cache of self-regulatory resources leading to performance degradations and fatigue. While resource depletion has indirectly been associated with a decline in right pre...

This paper describes a Dutch translation and validation of the Body Appreciation Scale-2 (BAS-2; Tylka & Wood-Barcalow, 2015a), an instrument for assessing key components of positive body image. Dutch-speaking female university students (N = 310, Mage = 21.31, SD = 3.04) completed the Dutch BAS-2. To assess its construct validity, participants also...

Good self-control has been linked to adaptive outcomes such as better health, cohesive personal relationships, success in the workplace and at school, and less susceptibility to crime and addictions. In contrast, self-control failure is linked to maladaptive outcomes. Understanding the mechanisms by which self-control predicts behavior may assist i...

This pilot study explored whether focusing on body functionality (i.e., everything the body can do) can protect women from potential harmful effects of exposure to thin-ideal images. Seventy women (Mage = 20.61) completed an assignment wherein they either described the functionality of their body or the routes that they often travel (control). Afte...

Objective Numerous stand-alone interventions to improve body image have been developed. The present review used meta-analysis to estimate the effectiveness of such interventions, and to identify the specific change techniques that lead to improvement in body image. Methods The inclusion criteria were that (a) the intervention was stand-alone (i.e....

This study tested Expand Your Horizon, a programme designed to improve body image by training women to focus on the functionality of their body using structured writing assignments. Eighty-one women (Mage=22.77) with a negative body image were randomised to the Expand Your Horizon programme or to an active control programme. Appearance satisfaction...

Women with a negative body evaluation display covariation bias: They overestimate the relation between their own body and negative social feedback. This study aimed to develop a more fine-grained understanding of this covariation bias and to determine whether it could be diminished. Seventy women completed a computer task wherein three categories o...

Body dissatisfaction in females is common and a risk factor for the development of an eating disorder. This study tested whether body dissatisfaction could be improved using a brief conditioning intervention in which photographs of participants' bodies were selectively paired with positive social stimuli (smiling faces) and photographs of other bod...

Feelings of body dissatisfaction are common in Western society, especially in women and girls. More than innocent discontent, body dissatisfaction can have serious consequences such as depression and eating disorders. The current article discusses the nature of body dissatisfaction, how it develops and how it is currently being treated. We also dis...

Feelings of body dissatisfaction are common in Western society, especially in women and girls. More than innocent discontent, body dissatisfaction can have serious consequences such as depression and eating disorders. The current article discusses the nature of body dissatisfaction, how it develops and how it is currently being treated. We also dis...

The current study investigated whether negative body evaluation predicts women's overestimation of negative social feedback related to their own body (i.e., covariation bias). Sixty-five female university students completed a computer task where photos of their own body, of a control woman's body, and of a neutral object, were followed by nonverbal...

DUTCH: Er is een paradigmaverschuiving gaande in het lichaamsbeeldonderzoek van een focus op het negatief lichaamsbeeld naar meer aandacht voor het positief lichaamsbeeld. Onderzoekers stellen dat het noodzakelijk is om het positief lichaamsbeeld te verbeteren – en niet alleen het negatief lichaamsbeeld te verminderen – om een gezond lichaamsbeeld...

With the current studies, we aimed to improve body satisfaction by inducing a functionality-based focus on the body. Objectification theory (Fredrickson & Roberts, 1997) was used as a guiding framework for this approach. In Study 1, 59 female and 59 male undergraduates and, in Study 2, 118 women between the ages of 30 and 50 years completed a writi...

Previous research has shown that eating disordered women lack a self-serving body image bias and largely make self-defeating social comparisons. These factors influence how eating disordered women feel about their bodies, and may also influence treatment for disordered eating. In group mirror exposure therapy, women inevitably compare their own bod...

In general, a high level of dieting motivation is associated with successful weight loss. However, this may not be equally true for everyone. The goal of the current longitudinal study was to test the interactive effect of dieting motivation and depressive symptoms on weight change in a sample of 142 participants (M age = 46.7; 112 females). Height...

Traditionally, a woman’s value has largely depended on her appearance, while a man’s value has depended on his performance. This tendency of society to evaluate women based on their bodies may cause many women to feel dissatisfied about their bodies if they fail to meet strict beauty standards. Body dissatisfaction has serious consequences such as...

Objective: The present research tested whether an evaluative conditioning intervention makes thin-ideal models less enviable as standards for appearance-based social comparisons (Study 1), and increases body satisfaction (Study 2). Design: Female participants were randomly assigned to intervention versus control conditions in both studies (ns = 66...

Previous studies have consistently shown that changing or avoiding emotions requires resources and therefore leads to impaired performance on a subsequent self-control task. The aim of the present study was to investigate the extent to which acceptance-based coping requires regulatory resources. Participants who accepted their emotions during expos...

DUTCH: De helft van de vrouwelijke bevolking is ontevreden over haar uiterlijk en vindt zichzelf te dik. Vele van deze vrouwen bekruipt zelfs een intens gevoel van afkeer als zij in de spiegel kijken. Dit onbehagen beperkt zich niet tot volwassen vrouwen; meisjes van niet ouder dan tien jaar piekeren over hun gewicht en lichaams-vormen. Wat zijn d...

The present study examined whether implicit measures of associations with snack foods and food consumer behaviour could be changed through a picture-picture evaluative conditioning procedure. In the experimental condition (n=41), female participants completed a conditioning procedure in which pictures of snack foods were paired with images of negat...

According to the limited strength model (Muraven, Tice & Baumeister, 1998), exerting self-control causes ego depletion: a depletion of cognitive resources resulting in poorer performance on later self-control tasks. Previous studies have demonstrated a positive effect of self-awareness on self-control performance. The present study examined whether...

Many women show weight and body concerns that leave them vulnerable to body dissatisfaction, lowered self-esteem, psychological distress, and eating disorders. This study tested whether body satisfaction could be increased by means of evaluative conditioning. In the experimental condition (n = 26), women with low and high body concern completed a c...

Many consider the existence of ‘pro-anorexia’ websites as one of the harmful excesses of the internet. On proanorexia websites, individuals describe how to achieve or to maintain an abnormally low body weight. The owners of the websites and their regular visitors are primarily young women who present their abnormal eating pattern as a legitimate ch...

Psychologen hebben zich lange tijd niets aangetrokken van de kwestie obesitas; de algemene opinie is dat obesitas vooral een biomedisch en maatschappelijk probleem is. Dit is een vergissing; obesitas is bovenal een gedragsprobleem. Een gedragsprobleem dat binnen de GGZ behandeld moet worden, en daar ook uitstekend behandeld kan worden. In dit artik...

Sad people may indulge in fattening snacks because they believe that eating will repair their mood. To test whether (1) changes in expectations and mood had an effect on caloric intake and (2) depressive symptoms moderated caloric intake, 73 women with binge eating disorder were randomly assigned to a condition in which expectations about food and...

Previous research has related impulsivity to overeating and obesity. However, the precise nature of this relation has not been examined yet. One possibility is that impulsivity causes overeating and hence contributes to overweight. To test this possibility we induced impulsivity versus inhibition to see whether this would affect food intake. In the...

This study examined the effect of the placement of a warning text before visiting proanorexia websites on actual access of these websites. A separate webpage with a warning text aiming at first-time visitors was placed before each proanorexia website hosted by a Dutch Internet provider. During the research period of 1 year, the numbers of hits at t...

Overeating may be a consequence of the suppression of negative emotions, by depleting self-control resources. This experiment investigated whether (a) there is a causal relationship between the suppression of negative emotions, negative mood, and overeating in people with binge eating disorder (BED) and whether (b) this relationship is increased in...

This study investigates why consumers accept different genetically modified food products to different extents. The study shows that whether food products are genetically modified or not and whether they are processed or not are the two important features that affect the acceptance of food products and their evaluation (in terms of perceived health...

Research on goal attainment has demonstrated that people are more likely to reach their goals when they form implementation intentions. Three experiments tested whether implementation intentions lead to tenacious goal striving following blockage of an initial attempt to reach the goal. In all three experiments some participants were instructed to f...

The present research tested predictions of the strength model of self-control and delay of gratification by examining the effects of initial self-control attempts and also attention on performance. Participants completed a series of two identical physical self-control tasks, namely holding up a weight, under varying conditions. The results showed t...

Purpose – New food technologies are of increasing importance but not a lot of research into how people react to these technologies has been conducted. The purpose of this paper is to provide insight into how implicit measurements in addition to explicit measurements give insight into how well an attitude towards a food concept, in relation to its f...

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Three experiments that test whether the activation of values may result in a change in the relationship between the activated value and connected attitudes are discussed. Participants were primed with the value universalism and subsequently asked for their attitude toward organically grown food. Our results strongly suggest that values are more lik...

Previous research has linked overeating and overweight/obesity to impulsivity. To find out whether impulsivity causes overeating and hence overweight and obesity, we attempted to prime the concept of impulsivity in healthy participants. In a within-subjects design one sample participated in two conditions. In both conditions participants did a prim...

Research has shown that repeated exercise of self-control leads to impaired performance on subsequent self-control tasks, a phenomenon labelled ego depletion. The current research investigates the influence of automatic processes on self-control performance. Study 1 shows that activation of persistence leads to stable self-control performance and m...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide insight into whether GM‐labelling leads to different processing behaviour of food stimuli compared to when products are not labelled. Design/methodology/approach – A task was designed to investigate people's categorization behaviour as a function of information provided. In two studies each partici...

Self-regulation research suggested that active self-control depends on a limited resource. Therefore the capacity for self-control is lower among people who already exercised control, a phenomenon labelled as ego depletion. This experiment examines whether priming of a persistent person exemplar may help to overcome ego depletion. Half of the parti...

Eating-disordered subjects feel unattractive, and the current idea is that this feeling reflects a distorted body image. A distorted body image requires a mismatch between the negative self-judgments and more objective judgments of the body. To examine whether eating-disordered subjects have valid reasons for their feelings of unattractiveness, the...

This survey showed that the values power (dominance over nature and resources) and universalism (respect for people and for nature) are related to attitudes toward genetically modified food (GMF) and organically grown food (OGF). Furthermore, these values have an influence on the centrality, commitment and ambivalence of these attitudes. Values tha...

This study examines people's acceptance of genetically modified (GM) food. Results suggest that GM acceptance depends most on how natural the genetically modified product is perceived and not directly on how natural the non-GM product is seen. A GM product that is perceived as more natural is more likely to be accepted than a GM product that is per...

In dit artikel presenteren de auteurs een gecontroleerd onderzoek (N= 43) naar de behandeling van trichotillomanie, waarin gedragstherapie werd vergeleken met fluoxetine (60 mg) en een wachtlijstconditie. Na twaalf weken bleek dat de gedragstherapie zeer effectief was (effect size 3.80) en effectiever dan fluoxetine of een wachtlijst. In een open v...

This study addresses which specific values play a role in predicting participants' attitudes toward genetically modified food (GMF) and organically grown food (OGF). The first central question is whether the attitudes towards GMF and OGF are influenced by specific values and beliefs. The second central question is whether the attitudes towards GMF...

Two studies describe the effectiveness of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) prevention programs by lay health advisors (LHAs) for migrants in The Netherlands. The effects of such AIDS programs were evaluated (Study 1) and compared with the effects of professional health advisors (PHAs, i.e. medical doctors or nurses) (Study 2). The first st...

Research suggests that two, consecutive acts of self-control lead to impaired performance. This phenomenon is termed "ego depletion." It is assumed that an act of self-control consumes energy from some limited resource leaving less energy available for a subsequent act of self-control. Study 1 tested the alternative hypothesis that people's naïve t...

This study examines participants' perceptions of the appropriateness of judgmental language to describe own, similar, and dissimilar attitudes. The judgmental language consisted of pre-tested adjectives that varied in terms of their descriptive content, evaluative connotation and type of implication. Adjectives were classified as person implicated...

The present article deals with the effects of the use of evaluatively biased language on attitudes, and with the role of cognitive effort. We tested whether active information processing — formulating arguments on the basis of evaluatively biased language — was a necessary condition for attitude change. Results of the present study support the pred...

The present paper deals with negativity and positivity effects in trait inferences and impression formation. In the first experiment we tested the suggestion of Skowronski and Carlston (1987) that in the domain of morality negative information is more diagnostic, will therefore receive more weight and result in a negativity effect whereas in the do...

Manis et al. (1986, 1988) have suggested that, when a classification is superimposed on a series of items, this can lead to a reduction in the judged differences between the classes (interclass assimilation), whereas most previous research points to an accentuation of interclass differences. In a modified replication of conditions used by Manis et...