
Nienke C. JonkerUniversity of Groningen | RUG · Department of Psychology
Nienke C. Jonker
PhD
About
45
Publications
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316
Citations
Introduction
Additional affiliations
October 2024 - present
October 2021 - December 2021
October 2020 - September 2021
Publications
Publications (45)
Because of inconsistencies in the field of attentional bias to food cues in eating behavior, this study aimed to re-examine the assumption that hungry healthy weight individuals have an attentional bias to food cues, but satiated healthy weight individuals do not. Since attentional engagement and attentional disengagement have been proposed to play...
Background
The current study set out to improve our understanding of the characteristics of individuals who are motivated to restrict their food intake yet who nevertheless fail to do so. We examined whether punishment sensitivity (PS) was related to restrained eating, and reward sensitivity (RS) to perceived dieting success. Additionally, it was e...
The term ‘hangry’ is colloquially used to describe being “bad tempered or irritable as a result of hunger,” but remarkably few studies have examined the effect of hunger on emotions. Yet, women attempting to restrict their food intake may be at risk of becoming entangled in a vicious cycle of hunger and negative emotions. That is, hunger may lead t...
Objective:
Cross-sectional research provides robust evidence that individuals with anorexia nervosa (AN) report higher punishment sensitivity (PS) than individuals without an eating disorder (ED). High PS might interfere with treatment motivation and the ability to learn from experience. The current study took a longitudinal approach to test predi...
First evidence shows that patients with AN were faster to categorise food in terms of calorie content (categorisation bias) and slower to reclassify food -that was initially categorised in terms of calorie content- in terms of tastiness (reclassification bias), relative to a comparison group without an eating disorder. The current study set out to...
Objective:
This study differentiated between self-reported punishment responsivity (PR) and motivation to avoid punishment (MP) and examined their relationship with anorexia nervosa (AN) and its course in a combined cross-sectional and longitudinal approach. We explored whether inconsistent findings regarding reward sensitivity may be explained by...
Drawing on our experiences conducting replications we describe the lessons we learned about replication studies and formulate recommendations for researchers, policy makers, and funders about the role of replication in science and how it should be supported and funded. We first identify a variety of benefits of doing replication studies. Next, we a...
This research proposes that cognitive biases involving the categorisation of food in terms of calorie content may contribute to restrictive eating in anorexia nervosa (AN). The current study sought to discriminate the validity of two novel hypotheses: (1) People with AN more readily categorise food in terms of calorie content rather than in terms o...
Drawing on our experiences conducting replications we describe the lessons we learnt about replication studies and formulate recommendations for researchers, policy makers, and funders about the role of replication in science and how it should be supported and funded. We first identify a variety of benefits of doing replication studies. Next, we ar...
A subsample of children and young people (CYP) with anxiety disorders presents with comorbid behavioral problems. These CYP have greater impairment in daily life, profit less from current treatments, and have an increased risk for continued mental problems. We investigated two potential explanations for these comorbid behavioral problems. First, hi...
Reward and punishment sensitivity seem important traits in understanding behavior in general and psychopathology in particular. Though the definitions used for reward and punishment sensitivity differentiate between responsivity and motivation, the measures thus far used to assess these constructs do not. Further, specificity of the type of reward...
Objective:
Satisfaction with normative life domains has been proposed as an important factor in the persistence of anorexia nervosa (AN). Initial evidence from a cross-sectional study indicated that individuals with AN reported lower satisfaction with normative life domains than individuals without an eating disorder. As an important next step in...
The unique and synergistic effects of daily risk and protective factors that shape our moods remain largely unknown because each is typically studied in isolation. Using experience sampling techniques 1396 Dutch adults reported on their positive and negative affect (PA/NA), social contact, emotion coping, physical activity, sleep quality, and negat...
Waarom hebben sommige mensen moeite om de voedselverleidingen in
hun omgeving te weerstaan en ontwikkelen ze overgewicht of obesitas? En
hoe valt dit te rijmen met het feit dat anderen – mensen met anorexia nervosa
– hun voedselinname dusdanig beperken dat het juist een risico voor
hun gezondheid wordt? Samen met collega’s onderzocht ik of aandacht...
We developed and examined the construct validity of the Disgust Avoidance Questionnaire (DAQ) as a measure of people’s inclination to prevent experiencing disgust (disgust prevention) and to escape from the experience of disgust (disgust escape). In a stepwise item-reduction (Study 1; N = 417) using Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) based on a 4-su...
Attentional bias (AB) has been suggested to contribute to the persistence of substance use behavior. However, the empirical evidence for its proposed role in addiction is inconsistent. This might be due to the inability of commonly used measures to differentiate between attentional engagement and attentional disengagement. Attesting to the importan...
Objective
Low satisfaction with normative life domains might be an important factor in the persistence of anorexia nervosa (AN). Initial evidence in non‐clinical samples showed that lower satisfaction with normative life domains was related to more intense eating disorder symptoms. As a critical next step, the current study examined satisfaction wi...
We developed and examined the construct validity of the Disgust Avoidance Questionnaire (DAQ) as a measure of people’s inclination to prevent experiencing disgust (disgust prevention) and to escape from the experience of disgust (disgust escape). In a stepwise item-reduction (sample 1; n = 417) using Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) based on a 4-s...
Heightened reward sensitivity has been proposed as a risk factor for developing behavioral disorders whereas heightened punishment sensitivity has been related to the development of anxiety disorders in youth. Combining a cross-sectional (n = 696, mean age = 16.14) and prospective (n = 598, mean age = 20.20) approach, this study tested the hypothes...
Previously, adolescents with anorexia nervosa (AN) showed reduced attentional engagement with food cues compared to adolescents without eating disorder (Jonker, Glashouwer, Hoekzema, Ostafin, & De Jong, 2019). This study tested whether (i) improvement in eating disorder symptoms and BMI are related to an increase in attentional engagement with food...
This study examined whether adolescents with anorexia nervosa (AN) are more sensitive to punishment and less sensitive to reward than a non-eating disorder comparison group. Both self-report and performance measures were used to index reward and punishment sensitivity. Participants were adolescents with AN (n = 69) and an individually matched compa...
Cognitive models emphasise the importance of attentional bias in addiction. However, many attentional bias tasks have been criticised for questionable psychometric properties and inability to differentiate between engagement and disengagement processes. This study therefore examined the suitability of two alternative tasks for assessing attentional...
Although it has been proposed that obese and healthy weight individuals might differ in their reward and punishment sensitivity, the literature shows diverse and inconsistent findings. The current study was set out to examine the role of reward and punishment sensitivity in adolescent obesity by differentiating between reward responsivity and rewar...
This study tested the capacity of a modified Bouncing Image Training Task (BITT) to enhance unsuccessful dieters' attentional disengagement from food cues. Unsuccessful dieters were assigned to a training group performing daily BITT sessions for one week (n = 57) or a waitlist control group (n = 56). Change in attention was assessed using a visual...
Background and objectives:
Anorexia Nervosa (AN) patients are characterized by an excessive restriction of their food-intake. Prior research using an Affective Simon Task (AST) with food as a task-irrelevant feature, provided evidence for the view that AN patients' ability to refrain from food is facilitated by reduced automatic approach tendencie...
This study examined differences in food-related Attentional Bias (AB) between patients with Anorexia Nervosa (AN) and adolescents without an eating disorder. AB was assessed with an Attentional Response to Distal versus Proximal Emotional Information (ARDPEI) task that was specifically designed to differentiate between attentional engagement with a...
PurposeAs the prevalence of overweight and obesity are still increasing, it is important to help individuals who encounter difficulty with losing weight. The current study was set out to further investigate characteristics of individuals who are highly motivated to restrict their food intake to lose weight, but fail to do so (i.e., restrained eater...
Increasing evidence shows that sensitivity to reward (SR) and punishment (SP) may be involved in eating disorders (EDs). Most studies used self-reported positive/negative effect in rewarding/punishing situations, whereas the implied proneness to detect signals of reward/punishment is largely ignored. This pilot study used a spatial orientation task...
Awarded the poster prize for best research abstract and presentation.
More than 80% of obese adolescents will become obese adults, and it is therefore important to enhance insight into characteristics that underlie the development and maintenance of overweight and obesity at a young age. The current study is the first to focus on attentional biases towards rewarding and punishing cues as potentially important factors...
Example of screen-setup of the Spatial Orienting Task (SOT).
Example of blue cue, followed by target in the uncued location (i.e., hard target) with subsequent slow response (i.e., negative feedback). From " Reward-related attentional biases and adolescent substance use: The TRAILS study", by M.E. Van Hemel-Ruiter, P.J. De Jong, A. J. Oldehinkel, a...
Bivariate correlations of adjusted-BMI and adjusted-BMI change variables.
(DOCX)
Number of participants in the low and high risk profile groups in the total TRAILS population (i.e., population) and in the focus cohort of participants who performed laboratory tasks.
From " Reward-related attentional biases and adolescent substance use: The TRAILS study", by M.E. Van Hemel-Ruiter, P.J. De Jong, A. J. Oldehinkel, and B. Ostafin, 2...
Women with high body dissatisfaction look less at their ‘beautiful’ body parts than their ‘ugly’ body parts. This study tested the robustness of this selective viewing pattern and examined the influence of positive body exposure on body-dissatisfied women's attention for ‘ugly’ and ‘beautiful’ body parts. In women with high body dissatisfaction (N...