Appetite control theory

INTERACTIONS BETWEEN GUT MICROBES AND OBESITY THE APPETITE CONTROL THEORY ... 

In two-factor theory, hungers and other appetites must be elicited by stimuli that are outside of the person s control. If the theory s other assumptions were true, this tenet would be both possible and necessary. It would be possible because two-factor theory holds appetites to be special kinds of processes that initially depend on innate releasing stimuli but that can come to be elicited by arbitrary cues through pairing alone. It would be necessary in the case of aversive appetites, because, with conventional exponential discounting, there is no other mechanism to make a person generate them. The easiest cure for fear... 

Addictive choices and other losses of self-control will often follow stimuli that occasion appetites for them, somewhat as Loewenstein describes. However, these appetites are better seen as reward-dependent processes that are part of the recursive self-prediction that Darwin and many others have elucidated rather than as the transferred reflexes of two-factor theory. Individuals can remember reward values with great accuracy but avoid rehearsing experiences like panic or drug craving lest they be lured back into them. Thus these experiences are often unreportable in practice. Once aroused, these processes function as self-confirming prophesies and, therefore, may seem both explosive and coercive. 

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