Katrijn Houben

k.houben@maastrichtuniversity.nl


During my PhD-project, my research focused on the assessment of relatively automatic associations with alcohol and their relationship with severity of alcohol misuse and abuse. It was hypothesized that heavy drinkers and alcohol abusers would be characterized by stronger positive automatic associations with alcohol than light drinkers. In line with this hypothesis, we demonstrated that stronger automatic associations between alcohol and positive affect (assessed with the Implicit Association Test), predict increased alcohol (ab)use. Thus, these findings suggest a role for automatic alcohol-related affective associations in alcohol abuse. Hence, people who already drink too much alcohol need to avoid acting upon automatic positive associations to reduce their alcohol intake.

My current research follows on these findings in two ways: First, I am examining whether automatic affective associations with alcohol can be changed through evaluative conditioning and whether this results in decreased alcohol (ab)use. Further, I am actively involved in testing other training procedures on the Internet that aim to change automatic impulses that steer alcohol use and abuse (such as attentional bias for alcohol-related stimuli), and thereby decrease alcohol (ab)use. Thus, these lines of research aim to directly change automatic impulses that steer alcohol intake. Second, I am investigating whether the influence of automatic associations on drinking behaviour can be changed indirectly, by increasing cognitive capacity for self-control. In recent studies, we have demonstrated that the predictive value of automatic associations with alcohol for actual alcohol consumption is moderated by executive functioning (i.e., cognitive abilities such as working memory, response inhibition). Specifically, this research shows that automatic associations predict drinking for people with lower cognitive capacity, but not at high levels of cognitive capacity. Based on these findings, I am currently investigating whether executive functions can be increased through training and whether such training procedures can help people to reduce their alcohol intake. Further, Dr. Anne Roefs and Dr. Chantal Nederkoorn have demonstrated that, similar to findings from alcohol abuse research, the predictive value of automatic associations with food for actual consumption is also moderated by cognitive capacity. Hence, training cognitive abilities may also be of value for obese people who wish to reduce their food consumption. This possibility is also examined in my current lines of research.

• Member of the course planning group for a bachelor’s course on writing skills, and a bachelor’s course on psychopathology.
• Supervision of bachelor theses on the topics of addiction, alcohol abuse, and eating behaviour, specifically with respect to indirect measures of automatic associations and executive functions (i.e., working memory, response inhibition). A bachelor thesis can be a literature review or can be based on a small experiment.
• Supervision of research for master theses. Students can participate in ongoing research, or they can come up with their own idea in the field of addictive behaviours and eating behaviours.

Havermans, R. C., Giesen, J. C. A. H., Houben, K., & Jansen, A. (2011). Weight, gender, and snack appeal. Eating Behaviors, 12, 126-130.

Houben, K. (2011). Overcoming the urge to splurge: The role of inhibitory control in eating behavior. Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, 42, 384-388. [Download PDF]

Houben, K. , & Jansen, A. (2011). Training inhibitory control: A recipe for resisting sweet temptations. Appetite, 56, 345-349. [Download PDF]

Houben, K. , Nederkoorn. C., Wiers, R. W., & Jansen, A. (2011). Resisting temptation: Decreasing alcohol-related affect and drinking behavior by training response inhibition. Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 116, 132-136. [Download PDF]

Houben, K. Wiers, R. W., & Jansen, A. (2011). Getting a grip on drinking behavior: Training working memory to reduce alcohol abuse. Psychological Science, 22, 968-975. [Download PDF]

Houben, K. , Roefs, A., & Jansen, A. (2010). Guilty pleasures: Implicit preferences for high calorie food in restrained eating. Appetite, 55, 18-24. [Download PDF]

Houben, K. , Schoenmakers, T. M., & Wiers, R. W. (2010). I didn't feel like drinking but I don't know why: The effects of evaluative conditioning on alcohol-related attitudes, craving and behavior. Addictive Behaviors, 35, 1161-1163. [Download PDF]

Dekker, N., Smeerdijk, A. M., Wiers, R. W., Duits, J., van Gelder, G. , Houben, K. , Schippers, G. , Linszen, D. H., & de Haan, L. (2010). Explicit and implicit cannabis associations in patients with recent-onset schizophrenia and healthy controls. Psychological Medicine, 40, 1325–1336.

Nederkoorn, C., Houben, K. , Hofmann, W., Roefs, A., & Jansen, A. (2010). Control yourself or just eat what you like? Weight gain over a year is predicted by an interactive effect of response inhibition and implicit preference for snack foods. Health Psychology, 29, 389-393.

Houben, K., Havermans, R. C., & Wiers, R. W. (2010). Learning to dislike alcohol: Conditioning negative implicit attitudes towards alcohol and its effect on drinking behavior. Psychopharmacology, 211, 79-86. [Download PDF]

Houben, K., Nosek, B. A., & Wiers, R. W. (2010). Seeing the forest through the trees: A comparison of different IAT variants measuring implicit alcohol associations. Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 106, 204-211. [Download PDF]

Wiers, R. W., Rinck, M., Kordts, R., Houben, K., & Strack, F. (2010). Re-training Automatic Action-Tendencies to Approach Alcohol in Hazardous Drinkers. Addiction, 105, 279-287.[Download PDF]

Houben, K., Rothermund, K., & Wiers, R. W. (2009). Eliminating recoding in the Alcohol-IAT: An application of the IAT-RF. Addictive Behaviors, 34, 487-489. [Download PDF]

Houben, K., & Wiers, R. W. (2009). Beer makes the heart grow fonder: Single-target implicit preferences for beer determine consumption. Netherlands Journal of Psychology, 62, 10-21.[Download PDF]

Houben, K., & Wiers, R. W. (2009). Response Inhibition Moderates the Influence of Implicit Associations on Drinking Behavior. Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, 33, 626-633.[Download PDF]

Wiers, R. W., Beckers, L., Houben, K., & Hofmann, W. (2009). A short fuse after alcohol: Implicit power associations predict aggressiveness after alcohol consumption in young heavy drinkers with limited executive control. Pharmacology, Biochemistry and Behavior, 93, 300-305.[Download PDF]

Houben, K., & Wiers, R. W. (2008). Implicitly positive about alcohol? Implicit positive associations predict drinking behavior. Addictive Behaviors, 33, 979-986. [Download PDF]

Houben, K., & Wiers, R. W. (2008). Measuring implicit alcohol associations via the Internet: Validation of Web-based Implicit Association Tests. Behavior Research Methods, 40, 1134–1143. [Download PDF]

Houben, K., & Wiers, R. W. (2007). Are drinkers implicitly positive about drinking alcohol? Personalizing the alcohol-IAT to reduce negative extrapersonal contamination. Alcohol and Alcoholism, 42, 301-307. [Download PDF]

Houben, K., & Wiers, R. W. (2007). Personalizing the Alcohol-IAT with Individualized Stimuli: Relationship with Drinking Behavior and Drinking-Related Problems. Addictive Behaviors, 32, 2852-2864. [Download PDF]

Wiers, R. W., Houben, K., & de Kraker, J. (2007). Implicit cocaine associations in active cocaine users and controls. Addictive Behaviors, 32, 1284-1289.

Houben, K., & Wiers, R. W. (2006). Assessing Implicit Alcohol Associations with the Implicit Association Test: Fact or Artifact? Addictive Behaviors, 31, 1346-1362. [Download PDF]

Houben, K., & Wiers, R. W. (2006). A Test of the Salience Asymmetry Interpretation of the Alcohol-IAT. Experimental Psychology, 53, 292-300. [Download PDF]

Candel, I., Merckelbach, H., Houben, K., & Vandyck, I. (2004). How children remember neutral and emotional pictures: Boundary extension in children's scene memories. American Journal of Psychology, 117, 249-257.



Houben, K. (2009). Wetenschappelijk onderzoek via het Internet: Voordelen en nieuwe uitdagingen. De Psycholoog, 44, 641-647.

Houben, K., Schoenmakers, T., Thush, C., & Wiers, R. W. (2008). Impliciete cognitie en verslaving: Theoretische inzichten en praktische toepassingen. Gedragstherapie, 41, 169-182. [Download PDF]

Houben, K. (2007). Alcoholgebruik: bewust of onbewust? Voeding Nu, 9, 17-19. [Download PDF]

Houben, K. (2006). Bookreview of J. Huijding (2006). Automatic affective associations and psychopathology. Maandblad Geestelijke Volksgezondheid, 61, 685-688.



Wiers, R. W., Houben, K., Roefs, A., de Jong, P., Hofmann, W., & Stacy, A. W. (2010). Implicit cognition in health psychology: Why common sense goes out of the window. In B. Gawronski & B. K. Payne (Eds.), Handbook of implicit social cognition. New York: Guilford.

Wiers, R. W., Schoenmakers, T., Houben, K., Thush, C., Fadardi, J. S., Cox, W. M. (2008). Can problematic alcohol use be trained away? New behavioural treatments aimed at changing and moderating implicit cognitive processes in alcohol abuse. In C. R. Martin (Ed.), Identification and treatment of alcohol dependency (pp. 185-205). Keswick, UK: M&K Publishing.

Houben, K., Wiers, R. W., & Roefs, A. (2006). Reaction Time Measures of Substance-Related Associations. In R. W. Wiers & A. W. Stacy (Eds.), Handbook of Implicit Cognition and Addiction (pp. 91-104). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publishers. [Download PDF]

Wiers, R. W., Houben, K., Smulders, F. T. Y., Conrod, P. J., & Jones, B. T. (2006). To drink or not to drink: The role of automatic and controlled processes in the etiology of alcohol-related problems. In R. W. Wiers & A. W. Stacy (Eds.), Handbook of Implicit Cognition and Addiction (pp. 339-361). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publishers.