Therapy Dogs Improve Student Affect but Not Memory

ABSTRACT

While students are increasingly struggling with anxiety and depression, the effects of therapy dogs on student stress has only recently been explored. This study was conducted to investigate whether therapy dogs can improve student affect and to determine if these benefits extend to cognition in the form of enhanced ability to remember information. Forty-four college students were randomly assigned to interact with a therapy dog or not during both learning (session 1) and testing (session 2) in a paired-associates procedure. Arousal, stress, and mood were measured at the beginning and end of each session. As predicted, therapy dogs increased happiness and decreased stress and arousal. However, there was no difference in recognition memory for the paired associates between the therapy dog and control conditions. Mood was a significant predictor of memory, such that decreased happiness in session 2 predicted better recognition performance. These findings indicate that the benefits of therapy dogs are primarily affective and not cognitive.     

Blunted cortisol response to acute pre-learning stress prevents misinformation effect in a forced confabulation paradigm

Research examining the effects of stress on false memory formation has been equivocal, partly because of the complex nature of stress-memory interactions. A major factor influencing stress effects on learning is the timing of stress relative to encoding. Previous work has shown that brief stressors administered immediately before learning enhance long-term memory. Thus, we predicted that brief stress immediately before learning would decrease participants' susceptibility to subsequent misinformation and reduce false memory formation. Eighty-four male and female participants submerged their hand in ice cold (stress) or warm (no stress) water for 3 min. Immediately afterwards, they viewed an 8-min excerpt from the Disney movie Looking for Miracles. The next day, participants were interviewed and asked several questions about the video, some of which forced them to confabulate responses. Three days and three weeks later, respectively, participants completed a recognition test in the lab and a free recall test via email. Our results revealed a robust misinformation effect, overall, as participants falsely recognized a significant amount of information that they had confabulated during the interview as having occurred in the original video. Stress, overall, did not significantly influence this misinformation effect. However, the misinformation effect was completely absent in stressed participants who exhibited a blunted cortisol response to the stress, for both recognition and recall tests. The complete absence of a misinformation effect in non-responders may lend insight into the interactive roles of autonomic arousal and corticosteroid levels in false memory development.     

Effects of Acute Methamphetamine on Emotional Memory Formation in Humans: Encoding vs Consolidation

Understanding how stimulant drugs affect memory is important for understanding their addictive potential. Here we examined the effects of acute d-methamphetamine (METH), administered either before (encoding phase) or immediately after (consolidation phase) study on memory for emotional and neutral images in healthy humans. Young adult volunteers (N = 60) were randomly assigned to either an encoding group (N = 29) or a consolidation group (N = 31). Across three experimental sessions, they received placebo and two doses of METH (10, 20 mg) either 45 min before (encoding) or immediately after (consolidation) viewing pictures of emotionally positive, neutral, and negative scenes. Memory for the pictures was tested two days later, under drug-free conditions. Half of the sample reported sleep disturbances following the high dose of METH, which affected their memory performance. Therefore, participants were classified as poor sleepers (less than 6 hours; n = 29) or adequate sleepers (6 or more hours; n = 31) prior to analyses. For adequate sleepers, METH (20 mg) administered before encoding significantly improved memory accuracy relative to placebo, especially for emotional (positive and negative), compared to neutral, stimuli. For poor sleepers in the encoding group, METH impaired memory. METH did not affect memory in the consolidation group regardless of sleep quality. These results extend previous findings showing that METH can enhance memory for salient emotional stimuli but only if it is present at the time of study, where it can affect both encoding and consolidation. METH does not appear to facilitate consolidation if administered after encoding. The study also demonstrates the important role of sleep in memory studies.     

A Randomized Cross-over Exploratory Study of the Effect of Visiting Therapy Dogs on College Student Stress Before Final Exams

This exploratory study investigated the effect of visiting therapy dogs on college-student perceived and physiological stress the week prior to final exams. Students (n = 78) were randomly assigned to order of a therapydog intervention and attention-control condition, each 15 minutes long. Students completed the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS), a stress visual analog scale (SVAS), and provided saliva for measuring nerve growth factor (sNGF) and alpha amylase (sAA), prior to randomization. Saliva samples and SVAS were again collected after each condition. There was no effect of group order on demographics, PSS, or initial SVAS. Repeated measures models were used to analyze the complete data sets of 57 students. There were no significant differences in sAA between or within students completing the intervention and control conditions. sNGF was not subjected to analysis as most levels were undetectable. Significant differences in SVAS scores were found between the intervention and control condition, with large effect sizes. SVAS scores were lower following the intervention, regardless of condition order (intervention first, p = 0.0001, d = 1.87; intervention second, p = 0.0004, d = 1.63). No SVAS differences were found for the control condition. Based on these findings, campus events with visiting therapy dogs represent a costeffective, easily accessible activity to reduce perceived, but not physiological, stress for college students prior to final exams.     

Delayed Onset of a Daytime Nap Facilitates Retention of Declarative Memory

Background

Learning followed by a period of sleep, even as little as a nap, promotes memory consolidation. It is now generally recognized that sleep facilitates the stabilization of information acquired prior to sleep. However, the temporal nature of the effect of sleep on retention of declarative memory is yet to be understood. We examined the impact of a delayed nap onset on the recognition of neutral pictorial stimuli with an added spatial component.

Methodology/Principal Findings

Participants completed an initial study session involving 150 neutral pictures of people, places, and objects. Immediately following the picture presentation, participants were asked to make recognition judgments on a subset of “old”, previously seen, pictures versus intermixed “new” pictures. Participants were then divided into one of four groups who either took a 90-minute nap immediately, 2 hours, or 4 hours after learning, or remained awake for the duration of the experiment. 6 hours after initial learning, participants were again tested on the remaining “old” pictures, with “new” pictures intermixed.

Conclusions/Significance

Interestingly, we found a stabilizing benefit of sleep on the memory trace reflected as a significant negative correlation between the average time elapsed before napping and decline in performance from test to retest (p = .001). We found a significant interaction between the groups and their performance from test to retest (p = .010), with the 4-hour delay group performing significantly better than both those who slept immediately and those who remained awake (p = .044, p = .010, respectively). Analysis of sleep data revealed a significant positive correlation between amount of slow wave sleep (SWS) achieved and length of the delay before sleep onset (p = .048). The findings add to the understanding of memory processing in humans, suggesting that factors such as waking processing and homeostatic increases in need for sleep over time modulate the importance of sleep to consolidation of neutral declarative memories.     

Both the hippocampus and striatum are involved in consolidation of motor sequence memory

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to investigate the cerebral correlates of motor sequence memory consolidation. Participants were scanned while training on an implicit oculomotor sequence learning task and during a single testing session taking place 30 min, 5 hr, or 24 hr later. During training, responses observed in hippocampus and striatum were linearly related to the gain in performance observed overnight, but not over the day. Responses in both structures were significantly larger at 24 hr than at 30 min or 5 hr. Additionally, the competitive interaction observed between these structures during training became cooperative overnight. These results stress the importance of both hippocampus and striatum in procedural memory consolidation. Responses in these areas during training seem to condition the overnight memory processing that is associated with a change in their functional interactions. These results show that both structures interact during motor sequence consolidation to optimize subsequent behavior.     

Effect of Radicicol Infusion on the <Emphasis Type="Italic">Src</Emphasis> Tyrosine Kinase Activity of Rat Hippocampus before and after Training in an Inhibitory Avoidance Task

The participation of protein serine/threonine kinases in memory formation and retrieval is well established. In contrast, relatively little is known on the role of protein tyrosine kinases (PTKs). Previous work showed that intra-hippocampal infusion of the Src-PTK inhibitor radicicol inhibits memory acquisition, consolidation, and retrieval of one-trial step-down inhibitory avoidance task. In this study, we investigated the possible interaction between levels of Src-PTK activity in hippocampus and memory acquisition, formation, and retrieval of this task. Radicicol (0.5 μg/ml) was infused into the CA1 region of the hippocampus of rats trained in a one-trial step-down inhibitory avoidance task. Radicicol infused 15 min before training decreased Src-PTK activity, as measured 0, 1.5, and 24 h after training, and impaired memory acquisition of the task. When given immediately after training, there was a decrease in Src-PTK activity 1.5 h, but not 0 or 24 h after training. This treatment depressed memory consolidation. Radicicol infused into CA1 10 min prior to retrieval testing inhibited hippocampal Src-PTK activity, as measured immediately after the test session. The results suggest that Src-PTKs participate in memory acquisition, consolidation, and retrieval processes, but the timing of the role of the enzyme is different in each case.     

New Episodic Learning Interferes with the Reconsolidation of Autobiographical Memories

It is commonly assumed that, with time, an initially labile memory is transformed into a permanent one via a process of consolidation. Yet, recent evidence indicates that memories can return to a fragile state again when reactivated, requiring a period of reconsolidation. In the study described here, we found that participants who memorized a story immediately after they had recalled neutral and emotional experiences from their past were impaired in their memory for the neutral (but not for the emotional) experiences one week later. The effect of learning the story depended critically on the preceding reactivation of the autobiographical memories since learning without reactivation had no effect. These results suggest that new learning impedes the reconsolidation of neutral autobiographical memories.     

The Effects of Group-Administered Canine Therapy on University Students’ Wellbeing: A Randomized Controlled Trial

University students with elevated stress levels are at risk for experiencing compromised mental health and for underperforming academically. In an effort to support student wellbeing, post-secondary campuses are increasingly offering canine therapy programs. These programs provide students opportunities to interact with dogs known for their calm public behavior, docile temperaments, and eagerness to interact with strangers. Despite the interest in canine therapy, there remains a paucity of research attesting to the benefits of this approach to support university student wellbeing. The aim of this study was to examine the effect of a group-administered, single-session canine therapy intervention on university students’ perceptions of stress, homesickness, and affinity to campus. Participants (n = 163) were randomly assigned to a treatment (n = 84, 20-minute exposure to therapy dog, handler, and fellow students) condition or a business-as-usual control (n = 79, 20 minutes of individual studying) condition. No baseline differences were identified between the two groups. Findings revealed a significant main effect for group, and when compared with the control group, participants in the treatment group showed significant decreases from pre-test to post-test in perceived stress, homesickness (dislike), and homesickness (attachment), and significant improvements in sense of school belonging. Interestingly, control group scores on homesickness (dislike) also differed significantly from pre-test to post-test, with the means increasing from pre-test to post-test. After controlling for pre- and post-test scores, there were no significant differences on any of the self-report measures between participants in the treatment and control groups at follow-up. Findings are discussed within the contexts of animal-assisted therapy and on-campus stress reduction initiatives.     

Stress hormones receptors in the amygdala mediate the effects of stress on the consolidation, but not the retrieval, of a non aversive spatial task

This study examined the effects of the arousal level of the rat and exposure to a behavioral stressor on acquisition, consolidation and retrieval of a non-aversive hippocampal-dependent learning paradigm, the object location task. Learning was tested under two arousal conditions: no previous habituation to the experimental context (high novelty stress/arousal level) or extensive prior habituation (reduced novelty stress/arousal level). Results indicated that in the habituated rats, exposure to an out-of-context stressor (i.e, elevated platform stress) impaired consolidation and retrieval, but not acquisition, of the task. Non-habituated animals under both stressed and control conditions did not show retention of the task. In habituated rats, RU-486 (10 ng/side), a glucocorticoid receptor (GR) antagonist, or propranolol (0.75 μg/side), a beta-adrenergic antagonist, injected into the basolateral amygdala (BLA), prevented the impairing effects of the stressor on consolidation, but not on retrieval. The CB1/CB2 receptor agonist WIN55,212-2 (WIN, 5 μg/side) microinjected into the BLA did not prevent the effects of stress on either consolidation or retrieval. Taken together the results suggest that: (i) GR and β-adrenergic receptors in the BLA mediate the impairing effects of stress on the consolidation, but not the retrieval, of a neutral, non-aversive hippocampal-dependent task, (ii) the impairing effects of stress on hippocampal consolidation and retrieval are mediated by different neural mechanisms (i.e., different neurotransmitters or different brain areas), and (iii) the effects of stress on memory depend on the interaction between several main factors such as the stage of memory processing under investigation, the animal's level of arousal and the nature of the task (neutral or aversive).     

Sleep-dependent facilitation of episodic memory details

While a role for sleep in declarative memory processing is established, the qualitative nature of this consolidation benefit, and the physiological mechanisms mediating it, remain debated. Here, we investigate the impact of sleep physiology on characteristics of episodic memory using an item- (memory elements) and context- (contextual details associated with those elements) learning paradigm; the latter being especially dependent on the hippocampus. Following back-to-back encoding of two word lists, each associated with a different context, participants were assigned to either a Nap-group, who obtained a 120-min nap, or a No Nap-group. Six hours post-encoding, participants performed a recognition test involving item-memory and context-memory judgments. In contrast to item-memory, which demonstrated no between-group differences, a significant benefit in context-memory developed in the Nap-group, the extent of which correlated both with the amount of stage-2 NREM sleep and frontal fast sleep-spindles. Furthermore, a difference was observed on the basis of word-list order, with the sleep benefit and associated physiological correlations being selective for the second word-list, learned last (most proximal to sleep). These findings suggest that sleep may preferentially benefit contextual (hippocampal-dependent) aspects of memory, supported by sleep-spindle oscillations, and that the temporal order of initial learning differentially determines subsequent offline consolidation.     

Updating versus Exposure to Prevent Consolidation of Conditioned Fear

Targeting the consolidation of fear memories following trauma may offer a promising method for preventing the development of flashbacks and other unwanted re-experiencing symptoms that characterise Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Research has demonstrated that performing visuo-spatial tasks after analogue trauma can block the consolidation of fear memory and reduce the frequency of flashbacks. However, no research has yet used verbal techniques to alter memories during the consolidation window. This is surprising given that the most effective treatments for PTSD are verbally-based with exposure therapy and trauma-focused cognitive behavioural therapy gaining the most evidence of efficacy. Psychological therapies aim to reduce the conditioned fear response, which is in keeping with the preliminary finding that an increased propensity for fear conditioning may be a vulnerability factor for PTSD. Our research had two aims. We investigated the degree to which individual differences in fear conditioning predict the development of PTSD symptoms. We also compared the preventative effects of two clinically informed psychological techniques administered during the consolidation window: exposure to the trauma memory and updating the meaning of the trauma. 115 healthy participants underwent a fear conditioning paradigm in which traumatic film stimuli (unconditioned stimuli) were paired with neutral stimuli (conditioned stimuli). Participants were randomly allocated to an updating, exposure or control group to compare the effects on the conditioned fear response and on PTSD symptomatology. The results showed that stronger conditioned responses at acquisition significantly predicted the development of PTSD symptoms. The updating group, who verbally devalued the unconditioned stimulus within the consolidation window, experienced significantly lower levels of PTSD symptoms during follow-up than the exposure and control groups. These findings are consistent with clinical interventions for chronic PTSD and have important implications for identifying those at risk as well as for designing novel early interventions to prevent the development of PTSD.     

The Roles of Noradrenergic and Glucocorticoid Activation in the Development of Intrusive Memories

Intrusive memories are a common feature of many psychological disorders. Recent evidence has potentially extended cognitive models of intrusions by identifying the role of biological markers of arousal at the time of consolidation in subsequent memory for emotional events. This study investigated the role of arousal during consolidation in the development of intrusive memories. Seventy-eight university students (37 men and 41 women) viewed 20 negative and 20 neutral images. Half the participants then underwent a cold pressor test (High Stress), immersing their hand in ice water, while the remaining participants immersed their hand in warm water (Low Stress). Samples of salivary alpha-amylase (sAA) and cortisol were collected from participants at baseline and following the stressor challenge. Participants completed a delayed free recall test and intrusion questionnaires two days later. Participants in the High Stress condition reported more intrusions of negative images than participants in the Low Stress condition. An interaction variable in a linear regression of increased noradrenergic and cortisol values predicted intrusive memories of emotional stimuli for men but not women. These findings are consistent with recent evidence of the combined effects of noradrenaline and corticoid responses to stress on emotional memories, and also with increasing evidence of gender differences in how stress hormones influence formation of emotional memories. These findings point to possible mechanisms by which development of intrusions may be prevented after consolidation of traumatic experiences.     

Correlation between Inter-Blink Interval and Episodic Encoding during Movie Watching

Human eye blinking is cognitively suppressed to minimize loss of visual information for important real-world events. Despite the relationship between eye blinking and cognitive state, the effect of eye blinks on cognition in real-world environments has received limited research attention. In this study, we focused on the temporal pattern of inter-eye blink interval (IEBI) during movie watching and investigated its relationship with episodic memory. As a control condition, 24 healthy subjects watched a nature documentary that lacked a specific story line while electroencephalography was performed. Immediately after viewing the movie, the subjects were asked to report its most memorable scene. Four weeks later, subjects were asked to score 32 randomly selected scenes from the movie, based on how much they were able to remember and describe. The results showed that the average IEBI was significantly longer during the movie than in the control condition. In addition, the significant increase in IEBI when watching a movie coincided with the most memorable scenes of the movie. The results suggested that the interesting episodic narrative of the movie attracted the subjects’ visual attention relative to the documentary clip that did not have a story line. In the episodic memory test executed four weeks later, memory performance was significantly positively correlated with IEBI (p<0.001). In summary, IEBI may be a reliable bio-marker of the degree of concentration on naturalistic content that requires visual attention, such as a movie.     

Meetings

ABSTRACT

This exploratory study builds on existing research on the physiological stress response to human–animal interactions in a non-clinical sample of adult dog-owners interacting with their own or an unfamiliar therapy dog under similar conditions. Participants were therapy-dog owners (TDO group; n = 5) interacting with their own dogs and dog owners interacting with an unfamiliar therapy dog (AAA group; n = 5). Following a 30minute baseline period, participants completed a stress task followed by a 30-minute dog interaction and then watched a neutral video for 60 minutes. The outcome variable of interest was the bio-behavioral stress response, measured by systolic and diastolic blood pressure (SBP, DBP), heart rate (HR), salivary cortisol, salivary alpha-amylase, and self-report. Trait anxiety and attitudes toward pets were assessed as moderating variables. Results revealed consistent physiological patterns, showing modest increases with the stressor and decreases from baseline following the intervention, for salivary cortisol, SBP, DBP, HR, and self reported anxiety and stress for both groups. In general, although the TDO group tended to perceive less stress and anxiety during the intervention than the AAA group, greater reductions in physiological measures were observed in the AAA group. Positive attitudes toward pets in the total sample of dog owners were associated with decreased levels of self-reported stress (p < 0.05), salivary cortisol, and SBP, while higher levels of trait anxiety were associated with higher levels of salivary cortisol (p < 0.05). In addition, higher levels of trait anxiety were associated with lower levels of autonomic nervous system indicators of stress (HR; SBP, p < 0.05; DBP, p < 0.05). Results support a buffering effect on the stress response associated with owners interacting with their dogs that may extend to interactions with unfamiliar therapy dogs in AAA, and supports the need for replication studies with larger sample sizes.     

Hounds and Homesickness: The Effects of an Animal-assisted Therapeutic Intervention for First-Year University Students

Transitioning from high school to university can prove to be a for midable challenge for many first-year students, with many experiencing home sickness. Given that students who experience homesickness are more likely than their non-homesick cohorts to drop out of university, universities have a vested interest in supporting students during their first-year transition. Programs that provide opportunities for human–animal interactions on campus are gaining popularity as one way of increasing students’ wellbeing. The current study examined the effects of an 8-week animal-assisted therapy (AAT) program on first-year university students’ wellbeing. An initial feasibility study (n = 86) was conducted that provided opportunities for students to interact, in small groups, with trained therapy dogs and their volunteer handlers. Results indicated that this program reduced participants’ levels of homesickness and increased their satisfaction with life. An experimental study was then conducted utilizing a similar 8-week group AAT program. Participants (n = 44) were assigned to either a treatment condition (i.e., the AAT program) or to a no-treatment condition (akin to a wait-list control). At the end of the eight weeks, participants in the AAT program reported greater reductions in homesickness and greater increases in satisfaction with life than did those in the no-treatment condition. From beginning to end of the program, participants in the treatment group evidenced reductions in homesickness and increases in satisfaction with life and connectedness to campus, while participants in the no-treatment condition evidenced an increase in homesickness and no changes in satisfaction with life and connectedness to campus. Results of both the feasibility study and the experimental study support the use of AAT programs to increase the wellbeing of first-year university students experiencing homesickness.     

The neurosteroid allopregnanolone impairs object memory and contextual fear memory in male C57BL/6J mice

Allopregnanolone (ALLO, or 3α-hydroxy-5α-pregnan-20-one) is a steroid metabolite of progesterone and a potent endogenous positive allosteric modulator of GABA-A receptors. Systemic ALLO has been reported to impair spatial, but not nonspatial learning in the Morris water maze (MWM) and contextual memory in rodents. These cognitive effects suggest an influence of ALLO on hippocampal-dependent memory, although the specific nature of the neurosteroid's effects on learning, memory or performance is unclear. The present studies aimed to determine: (i) the memory process(es) affected by systemic ALLO using a nonspatial object memory task; and (ii) whether ALLO affects object memory via an influence within the dorsal hippocampus. Male C57BL/6J mice received systemic ALLO either before or immediately after the sample session of a novel object recognition (NOR) task. Results demonstrated that systemic ALLO impaired the encoding and consolidation of object memory. A subsequent study revealed that bilateral microinfusion of ALLO into the CA1 region of dorsal hippocampus immediately following the NOR sample session also impaired object memory consolidation. In light of debate over the hippocampal-dependence of object recognition memory, we also tested systemic ALLO-treated mice on a contextual and cued fear-conditioning task. Systemic ALLO impaired the encoding of contextual memory when administered prior to the context pre-exposure session. Together, these results indicate that ALLO exhibits primary effects on memory encoding and consolidation, and extend previous findings by demonstrating a sensitivity of nonspatial memory to ALLO, likely by disrupting dorsal hippocampal function.     

Coupling of Thalamocortical Sleep Oscillations Are Important for Memory Consolidation in Humans

Sleep, specifically non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep, is thought to play a critical role in the consolidation of recent memories. Two main oscillatory activities observed during NREM, cortical slow oscillations (SO, 0.5–1.0Hz) and thalamic spindles (12–15Hz), have been shown to independently correlate with memory improvement. Yet, it is not known how these thalamocortical events interact, or the significance of this interaction, during the consolidation process. Here, we found that systemic administration of the GABAergic drug (zolpidem) increased both the phase-amplitude coupling between SO and spindles, and verbal memory improvement in humans. These results suggest that thalamic spindles that occur during transitions to the cortical SO Up state are optimal for memory consolidation. Our study predicts that the timely interactions between cortical and thalamic events during consolidation, contribute to memory improvement and is mediated by the level of inhibitory neurotransmission.     

悬尾应激对小鼠空间记忆及其反转学习的损伤效应

该文探讨了连续数天短时悬尾应激对小鼠十字迷宫空间记忆及其反转学习的作用。81只成年雄性昆明小鼠被分为4大组:绝对空间记忆获得组及巩固组;相对空间记忆获得组及巩固组。每大组又分为悬尾组(每天训练前或训练后立即接受悬尾处理20min)和对照组。结果表明,在空间记忆训练初期,各对照组和悬尾组动物正确反应率无明显差异,均在机遇水平;随着训练天数的增加,对照组成绩显著提高,当其正确反应率达到80%时,悬尾组正确反应率仍处于或略高于机遇水平,两组间差异显著(P<0.01);在反转学习中,悬尾组正确反应率也显著低于对照组(P<0.01)。这些表明,悬尾应激可显著损伤小鼠的空间记忆及其反转学习的获得和巩固,其中相对空间记忆及其反转学习的巩固受损尤为严重。     

The impact of weight stigma on caloric consumption

The present study assessed the influence of exposure to weight stigma on energy intake in both overweight and normal-weight adult women. Seventy-three women (mean age: 31.71 ± 12.72 years), both overweight (n = 34) and normal weight (n = 39), were randomly assigned to view one of two videos depicting either weight stigmatizing material or neutral material, after which they consumed snacks ad libitum. Pre- and post-video measures included blood pressure, attitudes toward overweight individuals, and positive and negative affect. Participants' body weight was measured, as was the number of kilocalories consumed following video exposure. Overweight women who watched the stigmatizing video ate more than three times as many kilocalories as overweight women who watched the neutral video (302.82 vs. 89.00 kcal), and significantly more calories than the normal-weight individuals who watched either the stigmatizing or the neutral video. A two-by-two analysis of covariance revealed that even after adjusting for relevant covariates, there was a significant interaction between video type and weight status in that when overweight, individuals consumed significantly more calories if they were in the stigmatizing condition vs. the neutral condition (F(1,65) = 4.37, P = 0.04, η(2) = 0.03). These findings suggest that among overweight women, exposure to weight stigmatizing material may lead to increased caloric consumption. This directly challenges the notion that pressure to lose weight in the form of weight stigma will have a positive, motivating effect on overweight individuals.