Elsevier

Appetite

Volume 54, Issue 3, June 2010, Pages 607-610
Appetite

Short communication
Looking cool or attaining self-rule. Different motives for autonomy and their effects on unhealthy snack purchase

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2010.02.017Get rights and content

Abstract

Being integral to adolescent health, autonomy presumably also is related to adolescent unhealthy snacking. We distinguish two differently motivated forms of autonomy: agentic autonomy, driven by a motivation to self-regulate, and self-presentational autonomy, driven by motives of image cultivation. The present study aimed to investigate the differential associations of these two types of motivation with unhealthy snack purchase in a prospective study among 105 adolescents. Results confirmed that agentic autonomy correlated with less unhealthy snack purchase, while self-presentational autonomy correlated with increased unhealthy snack purchase in males but not in females. This supports the hypothesis that autonomy is related to adolescent unhealthy eating, but can do so in different ways.

Introduction

The development of autonomy is crucial for successful psychosocial adjustment in adolescence (Erikson, 1968, McElhaney and Allen, 2001). Autonomy can generally be defined as a state of relative independence, with the adolescent being self-directing and self-governing (Blos, 1979, Ryan and Deci, 2000). While autonomy likely plays a role in how adolescents practice health (risk) behaviors (Spear & Kulbok, 2004), there is a remarkable lack of studies on the topic. The current study addresses this gap in the literature by investigating the relation between adolescent autonomy and unhealthy snacking.

The existence of a link between autonomy and eating behavior seems conceptually plausible: while eating is usually under the realm of parental control during childhood, this becomes less the case as children grow older. Adolescents consume more food away from parental input and often receive pocket money allowing them to purchase food independently (Chapman & MacClean, 1993).

The plausibility of a link between autonomy and eating behavior is also evident from sociological and anthropological research, which demonstrates that eating is more than mere necessity and takes on a role in self-definition and identity communication (e.g. Counihan, 1999). A recent review of empirical work indicates that eating is indeed an effective vehicle for the expression of various aspects of identity such as morality and agreeableness (Vartanian, Herman, & Polivy, 2007). In a similar vein, we propose that eating behavior can be an instrumental tool both for the attainment and the expression of autonomy.

While (to the best of the authors’ knowledge) no quantitative empirical evidence exists regarding the relation between adolescent autonomy and eating behavior, several qualitative studies have been conducted. Most of these studies suggest that autonomy is related to unhealthy food choices: adolescents are thought to utilize unhealthy eating as a form of rebellion against parental control (Hill, 2002, Stevenson et al., 2007) or as a means through which they can display their newfound autonomy to peers and express peer solidarity (Bassett, Chapman, & Beagan, 2008). Opposite views have also been reported, however, suggesting that autonomous adolescents do not eat more unhealthily than less autonomous peers (Videon & Manning, 2003). A recent conceptual analysis even suggests that autonomous adolescents might actually make healthier food choices (Spear & Kulbok, 2004).

These differences can be explained by considering more closely how the aforementioned studies define autonomy. On the one hand, autonomy can be considered as driven by self-presentational motives. Scholars taking this view posit that adolescents aim to quite literally break away from the familial ties that bound them as children and to show off this new-found independence to peers (Bassett et al., 2008, Hill, 2002). On the other hand, autonomy can be considered to be driven by an authentic wish to gain agency and to learn to responsibly regulate oneself.

Rather than claiming that either view of autonomy is ‘right’, we posit that two unrelated and independent forms of autonomy can be distinguished, that are differentially associated with eating. We call the first type of autonomy, driven by self-regulatory motives, ‘agentic autonomy’. We call the second type of autonomy, driven by motives of image cultivation, ‘self-presentational autonomy’.

The present study empirically investigates the correlations of autonomy for agentic motives and autonomy for self-presentational motives with adolescents’ unhealthy snacking behavior. Combining these two types of autonomy in one study brings together two previously separate and conflicting literatures on autonomy and eating. Snacking is taken as measure of eating behavior since it constitutes the food intake adolescents have most choice over. Moreover, snack consumption substantially contributes to overweight (e.g. De Graaf, 2006).

The first aim of this study is to demonstrate that the two proposed types of autonomy are indeed meaningfully distinctive, using self-control as a central differentiating factor. Self-control is defined as the ability to exert control over the self and to inhibit habitual behavior (Muraven and Baumeister, 2000, Tangney et al., 2004). Adolescents in whom autonomy is motivated by agentic reasons likely have good self-control skills: they can inhibit impulses that would be counterproductive in the long term. Adolescents motivated for self-presentational reasons, however, probably act more impulsively. Moreover, research has shown that active impression management requires self-regulatory resources, leading to ego-depletion and impaired self-control capacity (Vohs, Baumeister, & Ciarocco, 2005). We thus expect a positive correlation between self-control and agentic motives for autonomy, and a negative correlation between self-control and self-presentational motives for autonomy. Additionally, we expect no relation between the two types of autonomy, hypothesizing rather that they exist as two independent factors.

Our second aim is to demonstrate that self-presentational autonomy and agentic autonomy are oppositely related to adolescent unhealthy snacking. It is predicted that adolescents who report higher agentic motives for autonomy will report less unhealthy snack choices. The opposite relation is expected for self-presentational motives for autonomy: adolescents who report higher tendencies toward self-presentational autonomy are expected to report more unhealthy snacking behavior. Since eating may carry different (self-presentational) meaning for men and women (Martin et al., 2001, Pliner and Chaiken, 1990), we will explore whether gender moderates the relation between either type of autonomy and snack purchase.

Section snippets

Participants

Participants were recruited from two Dutch secondary schools. The study was prospective with a week between the first and second data collection. A total of 154 students participated in the first part of the study, while 105 students completed the second part. Logistic regression indicated that drop-out was selective (χ2 (4, N = 154) = 16.42, p < .001). Based on the Wald criterion, gender (χ2 (1, N = 154) = 5.89, p = .015) and school level (χ2 (1, N = 154) = 6.43, p = .011) predicted drop-out. Males were more

Results

Table 1 shows the correlations, means and standard deviations for the main variables under study. Results from the correlational analysis indicate a strong empirical basis for the conceptual distinction between self-presentational autonomy and agentic autonomy. While there was a strong positive relation between agentic autonomy and self-control, r = .491, p < .001, the relation between self-control and self-presentational autonomy was significant and negative, r = −.200, p = .040. Moreover, the two

Discussion

The current study explored two different motives for autonomy and their relation to adolescent snacking behavior. Results demonstrated, firstly, that two differently motivated types of autonomy can be distinguished in adolescents. Agentic autonomy and self-presentational autonomy were shown to be two distinct concepts, distinguishable by means of self-control scores. As expected, results showed that self-control scores were higher in adolescents with agentic (controlled, internally regulated)

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The authors would like to thank Joanne Gerrits for her help with the data collection and Siegfried Dewitte for his helpful comments on an earlier version of this article.

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