Preferences for coaching strategies in a personalized virtual coach for emotional eaters 125 5 Discussion RQ1: Are there predictors for identification with the proto-typical problem situations for emotional eaters ‘experiencing cravings’ and ‘after giving in to cravings’? To be in a position to meet the needs of prospective users of a personalized virtual coach, the present study examined whether respondents would identify with the presented problem situations. It is crucial that participants and future users of the personalized virtual coach recognized themselves in one or both problem situations, because these two situations are the most essential situations, known by emotional eaters [22, 40, 76]. The fact that the participants recognized the presented problem situations well, contributes to the development of the virtual coach. With this, it can be accomplished that future users who are in trouble and consult the coach, immediately can be referred to appropriate coaching. The majority of participants recognized the problem situations and women with a higher BMI and with a higher degree of self-reported Emotional Eating recognized themselves more often in both situations than women with lower BMI and lower self-reported Emotional Eating. This was also found for emotional instability in relation to ‘experiencing cravings’. Thus, the characteristics BMI, emotional eating and emotional stability can be considered as predictors in recognizing the problem situations ‘experiencing cravings’ and ‘after giving in to cravings’. The added value of this knowledge may reside in the fact that future users of the virtual coach, who score on these characteristics, are better recognized and accommodated in their need for coaching. By taking such insights into account, coaching can be more tailor-made. Considering the results, we can conclude that the personas were well recognized by the participants. In this context it can be noted that, though not statistically significant, the recognition for the personas was different from one another: 62% of them identified with the persona that represented the problem situation ‘after giving in to cravings’, compared to the 47% that identified with ‘experiencing cravings’. The somewhat higher percentage of recognition may have arisen because at least five possible factors may have influenced the participants’ choices: 1 The appearance of the two different personas (the persona representing the problem situation ‘experiencing cravings’, Anita, is somewhat older and perhaps less appealing; the persona representing the problem situation ‘after giving in to cravings’, Lisanne, is young and pretty);
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