Introduction

One in three college-aged Americans have obesity [1], with higher rates in later years of college [2,3], which increases the risk for adiposity-associated chronic disease and all-cause mortality [4]. College is a transitional time for young adults, often accompanied by unhealthy changes in physical activity, diet and other energy balance related behaviors. Problematic drinking behaviors, defined as excess consumption (i.e., seven drinks per week or more for women and 14 or more for men) or binge drinking (i.e., more than three drinks per occasion for women and more than four for men) are also common in college students, with almost 33 percent of college students reported engaging in problematic drinking within the past 30 days at the time of being surveyed [5]. Problematic drinking during college is linked to injury and accidental death, unintended pregnancy, and future alcohol abuse [6–8]. and may contribute to the transition from healthy weight to overweight/obesity [9]. Understanding and preventing obesogenic behaviors and problematic drinking among college students may help them to develop healthy habits that could positively affect their lifelong health.

Both food and alcohol consumption are promoted by the dopaminergic mesolimbic reward system in the brain that detects rewarding stimuli and prompts cravings and reward-seeking behaviors [10–13]. This pathway is involved in classical conditioning [14], a learning process where paired exposure to a cue and an associated reward can subsequently lead to motivation for that reward upon cue exposure. Both food and alcohol function as primary reinforcers in operant conditioning [15–18], and exposure to images of food and alcohol activate the brain reward pathway and may result in the development of an attentional bias to food and alcohol cues in in the environment [19,20].

While research supports the importance of attentional bias in the etiology of obesity and problematic drinking behaviors [21–23],^, there is little research investigating risk factors for increased cue reactivity among college students, despite their heightened risk for obesity and problematic drinking relative to their same age non-college peers [24–26]. We propose a model in which ubiquitous negative news exposure may lead to an increase in negative affect, which in turn, leads to an increase in the amount of attention given to food and alcohol cues to alleviate the increase in negative affect. Our model is grounded in incentive salience theory that describes how rewards and their cues become highly motivating and attention grabbing through associate learning principles [27]. Negative affect activates neural systems involved in both threat detection and reward processing, particularly the amygdala and ventral striatum [13,28,29]. This emotional arousal increases attentional salience of emotionally relevant or rewarding cues (such as food or alcohol), leading to a heightened attentional bias [21,22,30]. Attentional bias toward these cues may function as a maladaptive emotion regulation strategy, offering temporary relief or distraction from distress [27,31]. Over time, this pattern can reinforce maladaptive coping strategies, particularly in environments that are replete with food and alcohol cues [30,32].

Negative news exposure is related to decreased positive affect and increased negative affect in observational research [33–36]. While compelling, the observational nature of these previous studies, preclude inference on the temporality of associations and causation. Specifically, it is unknown whether negative news exposure caused a change in negative affect and/or if those with a negative affect increased their negative news exposure in response. The specific effect of news from social media, as opposed to more traditional news sources, on affect is also unknown. Social media is a frequent news source for many college students; a 2018 survey of 5, 844 students from 11 U.S. institutions reported that 89% viewed news from social media at least once a week and 72% viewed news on social media daily [37]. News on social media tends to be overwhelmingly negative and sensationalized to target people’s emotions [38–47].

Recognizing college students ubiquitous use of social media, food marketers are increasingly advertising via social news feeds [42,43], with approximately 68% of advertisements shown in the United States promoting unhealthy foods and sugary drinks [44]. This high exposure may lead to a further sensitizing of an individual to food and alcohol advertisements, increasing their attentional bias to food and alcohol cues leading to increased craving and subsequent reward seeking and consumption behavior. The saliency of the cues may also be heightened under cognitive strain such as negative mood, leading to an increased attentional bias [45]. In this study, we explore the novel hypothesis that negative news exposure leads to an increase in attentional bias to food and alcohol cues among college students through the mechanism of negative affect. We measure two robust eye tracking measures of attentional bias related to unconscious and conscious processing. Unconscious attentional bias is automatic and reflects how much a salient cue (e.g., food or alcohol stimuli) captures attention and is measured as first fixation bias [46]. Conscious attentional bias is under conscious control and reflects the maintenance of attention to a salient cues and is measured as cumulative fixation bias [46,47]. We hypothesize that negative affect will increase following acute negative news exposure, and further, that attentional bias to food cues will be greater when participants are exposed to negative vs. control news media. We also hypothesized that negative affect will partially mediate the association between negative news exposure and attentional bias to food cues; the association between negative news and attentional bias to food cues will be strongest for those with the greatest levels of negative affect.

Methods

Results

Most participants were male (57.14%), white, non-Hispanic (88%), and the average participant age was 20.48 (SD = 1.80; range = 18–26). Participant age, sex, and ethnicity were not statistically associated with either first fixation bias or cumulative fixation bias to food or alcohol cues. The mean of the IOS screener was 9.28 (SD = 8.22) and the mean of the AUDIT was 3.23 (SD = 4.64). None of our participants had scores to indicate increased eating disorder or hazardous alcohol consumption risk. There were no associations between IOS screener scores and attentional bias to food cues, nor any associations between AUDIT scores and attentional bias to alcohol cues. First fixation bias and cumulative fixation bias were positively correlated (P < 0.001) (Table 1).

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Table 1. Bivariate associations of attentional bias with age, sex, race, and problematic food and alcohol screeners.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0342572.t001

Overall, viewing negative news was associated with statistically significant increase in negative affect compared to viewing control news (P < 0.001; Cohen’s d = 0.57) (Fig 1). In a series of sex and age adjusted mixed effect regressions using cumulative fixation bias as the outcome, the standardized regression coefficient between negative news and cumulative fixation bias was statistically significant, as was the regression coefficient between negative affect and cumulative fixation bias. Viewing negative news was associated with a statistically significant 0.25 SD (P = 0.041) increase in cumulative fixation bias, and for every 1 SD increase in negative affect there was a statistically significant 0.21 SD (P = 0.049) increase in cumulative fixation bias. Furthermore, the standardized indirect effect of negative affect between negative news exposure and cumulative fixation bias was not significant (β = 0.14 SD; P = 0.056) (Figs 1, 2).

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Fig 1. Post – pre negative affect change by news exposure condition.

Circles represent individual data points. Error bars represent the 95% CI around mean estimates.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0342572.g001

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Fig 2. Standardized regression coefficients for the relationship between cumulative fixation bias and negative news exposure as mediated by negative affect.

Adjusted for age and sex.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0342572.g002

In a series of sex and age adjusted mixed effect regressions using first fixation bias as the outcome, viewing negative news was associated with a non-statistically significant 0.38 SD increase in first fixation bias (P = 0.074). Negative affect was statistically significantly associated with first fixation bias; for every 1 SD increase in negative affect there was a 0.19 SD (P = 0.047) increase in first fixation bias. However, the standardized indirect effect of negative affect between negative news exposure and first fixation bias was not significant (β = 0.09; P = 0.282) (Fig 3).

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Fig 3. Standardized regression coefficients for the relationship between first fixation bias and negative news exposure as mediated by negative affect.

Adjusted for age and sex.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0342572.g003

The findings were not substantively changed, and the statistical significance of all analyses remained unchanged after outlier removal. The findings were not substantively changed when analyses were completed separately for food and alcohol cues, although the results did not remain statistically significant, more than likely due to a lack of power.

Discussion

Among a sample of college students, we investigated the direct and indirect effects of negative affect between negative news exposure and eye tracking measures of attentional bias. We found that direct exposure to acute negative news was associated with a statistically significant increase in negative affect. However, there were no statistically significant associations between negative news and first fixation bias and cumulative fixation bias to combined food and alcohol cues, and there was not a statistically significant mediation effect of negative affect on the associations between negative news exposure and first fixation bias and cumulative fixation bias.

While associations between negative news and attentional bias measures were non-significant and should be interpreted cautiously, the trends suggest possible underlying associations. Given the exploratory nature of the study and the potential for small effect sizes in attentional bias paradigms [47,53,54], the lack of significance may reflect insufficient sample size rather than the absence of a true effect. For example, these near significant associations are consistent with work showing that inducing a negative mood may increase selective attention to food cue [45], as well as increase in attentional bias for alcohol-related cues [23].

Additionality, our finding of significant associations between negative affect and attentional bias is consistent with research suggesting that this association may play an important role in maladaptive eating and drinking behaviors. Coping with negative affect is a key component of etiological models of maladaptive alcohol and food consumption. These models posit that individuals experiencing high levels of negative affect eat or consume alcohol to relieve the stress experienced from negative emotions [57–59]. This may be attributed to a negative reinforcement mechanism in which the negative affect is reduced in the short term. However, it is unclear whether this is an effective long-term strategy to reduce negative affect and may even result in an overall increase in negative affect over time. For example, framing information in the negative captures attention [60] and college students who learn about adverse breaking news via social media are more likely to experience cognitive preoccupation with breaking news, which may lead to more compulsive social media use [61]. It is therefore possible that negative news’ availability in the modern media environment leads to increased engagement in social media among college students. Future research is needed to evaluate the effect of long-term news exposure on both acute and chronic negative affect.

First fixation bias and cumulative fixation bias are hypothesized to measure distinct aspects of early and late attentional mechanisms, respectively. Contrasting past work, we found a strong correlation between the two, suggesting a common underlying attentional mechanism. However, it is possible that this association is an artifact of the way in which we measured attention to our study stimuli. We calculated attentional bias by contrasting eye tracking measures to experimental stimuli with those to control stimuli that were shown in isolation. This contrasts typical eye tracking paradigms of attentional bias that either use cueing paradigms or multiple stimuli displays that increase the demands on attention. First fixation bias measures how much a stimulus initially captures attention, whereas cumulative fixation bias how much a stimulus holds attention over time. The lack of competing stimulus in our study may have biased how our participants allocated their attention to target stimuli both initially and over time, and may reflect general attentional engagement with salient stimuli rather than a true bias in attentional competition.

While this may limit construct validity—particularly in terms of measuring attention under competition – it was an intentional design choice to enhance ecological validity. In everyday settings such as scrolling through social media or browsing news content, individuals often engage with single, sequential stimuli rather than competing images presented simultaneously. By mimicking this more naturalistic viewing experience, our design provides insight into how attention is allocated to emotionally salient cues in real-world media environments. This trade-off highlights the importance of matching task design to research goals—whether to isolate attentional processes or to approximate real-world exposure—and suggests future studies should consider incorporating both isolated and competing stimulus paradigms to triangulate attentional bias effects.

These findings have important practical implications for health promotion and intervention design, particularly among young adults. Given that negative news exposure can heighten emotional distress and drive attention toward unhealthy reward cues, strategies that reduce exposure to distressing media or buffer its emotional impact may help mitigate maladaptive behaviors such as emotional eating and alcohol use [62,63]. Interventions such as mindfulness, cognitive reappraisal, or stress management training may reduce the impact of negative affect on attentional processes and subsequent behavior [64–66]. Media literacy programs that train individuals to critically evaluate media content and understand its emotional effect may serve as effective interventions to reduce vulnerability to maladaptive coping [67,68], particularly in high-exposure environments such as college campuses.

Our results should be understood within the following limitations. We did not assess repeated news exposure; despite the fact it may be an additional risk factor to increased attentional bias. Relatedly, the structure of our experiment precludes conclusions about the dose response effects of negative news exposure. Future research is needed to measure changes in negative affect throughout negative news exposure, possibly using biometrics. We also didn’t collect data on participants’ alcohol or food use as coping strategies or measure actual consumption. This limits our ability to interpret attentional biases in negative affect as real-world emotion regulation strategies or consumption patterns. Future studies should include these measures to understand attentional bias’s functional relevance in coping behaviors and whether attentional shifts lead to increased consumption under emotional distress. We also had a majority white, non-Hispanic population. Epidemiological studies show problematic drinking volume varies by U.S. ethnic group, with rates highest among Hispanics and Native Americans followed by Whites, Blacks, and Asians [69]. Similarly, obesity disproportionately affects certain racial and ethnic minority groups, with Non-Hispanic Blacks at the highest risk [70]. Future work is needed to understand how our proposed relationships in high-risk groups. A further limitation is the restricted range of AUDIT and IOS screener scores in our sample, as no participants reported elevated problematic drinking or eating behavior. This limits generalizability. Future research should examine if associations between negative affect and attentional bias are stronger in individuals with clinically relevant alcohol or food-related behavior. We also observed near significant associations between negative news exposure and attentional bias, suggesting possible underlying associations. Further investigation with a-priori power calculations is warranted to ensure adequate sample size and sensitivity to detect subtle effects.

Conclusion

This study provides novel evidence linking negative news exposure to attentional bias toward food and alcohol cues, with negative affect playing a mediating role. These findings underscore the psychological and attentional consequences of distressing media and highlight potential pathways by which such exposure may contribute to maladaptive behaviors, particularly among college students. While our naturalistic design enhances ecological validity and offers insights into real-world attentional processes, future research should expand on these results by examining repeated exposure, consumption behaviors, and responses in more diverse populations. Addressing these gaps will be critical for informing targeted interventions—such as emotion regulation training and media literacy programs—that aim to buffer the cognitive and behavioral effects of negative media exposure in vulnerable groups.