Journal
BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
Volume 13, Issue 7, Pages -Publisher
MDPI
DOI: 10.3390/bs13070574
Keywords
eating disorder; anorexia nervosa; bulimia nervosa; fear of weight gain; safety behaviors; behavior as information; vignette study
Categories
Ask authors/readers for more resources
When evaluating ambiguous situations, humans sometimes interpret safety behaviors as evidence for danger. This study tested the impact of eating disorder safety behaviors on threat perception in individuals with and without an eating disorder. Participants rated situations with eating disorder safety behaviors as more threatening, regardless of their eating disorder status. These findings suggest that eating disorder safety behaviors can increase threat perception and may contribute to the development and maintenance of eating disorder fears.
When evaluating ambiguous situations, humans sometimes use their behavior as a source of information (behavior-as-information effect) and interpret safety behaviors as evidence for danger. Accordingly, we hypothesized that eating disorder safety behaviors (restrictive eating, body checking, etc.) might aggravate fear and anxiety in individuals with an eating disorder. The present study tested to what extent eating disorder safety behaviors increase threat perception in individuals with and without an eating disorder. For this, 108 individuals with a self-reported eating disorder diagnosis and 82 healthy controls rated the dangerousness of several short situations. The situations systematically varied in the presence of eating disorder safety behaviors and danger information. As expected, all participants perceived situations in which the protagonist executed an eating disorder safety behavior as more threatening than situations without a safety behavior. This 'behavior-as-information' effect was equally strong in individuals with and without an eating disorder. Additionally, safety behaviors strengthened threat perception more in safe situations than in dangerous situations. To conclude, the presence of eating disorder safety behavior can increase threat perception regardless of whether individuals have an eating disorder or not. This makes eating disorder safety behaviors a potential risk factor for the development and maintenance of eating disorder fears.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available