ابعاد کنترل روانشناختی والدین: ارتباطات با پرخاشگری فیزیکی و رابطه پیش دبستانی در روسیه

In the present study we investigated the evaluation of body shapes in patients with restrictive anorexia nervosa (AN) on both automatic and controlled levels. The first aim of the study was to examine whether an ultra-thin ideal or negative attitudes toward overweight might be the motivation behind pathological restriction. The second aim was to investigate the relationship between body figure evaluations, eating disorder symptoms and mood. A Modified Affective Priming Test was used to measure implicit evaluations of body silhouettes, while a Likert scale was used to assess explicit evaluations. The study involved 35 women with restrictive anorexia nervosa and 35 age- and education-level-matched controls with normal body weight. In contrast to the control group, the patients did not show a positive attitude toward the ultra-thin body shape on the automatic level. The AN group both on the automatic and the self-reported levels evaluated the overweight body as negative. Depression and anxiety did not influence body evaluation. Strong negative evaluation of overweight appears to be a key issue in AN rather than positive evaluation of ultra-thin role models.

Anorexia nervosa (AN) is a condition of self-initiated weight loss, usually found in adolescents and young women, and characterised by a profound disturbance of body image, distorted self-perception, starvation and an obsessive fear of gaining weight (American Psychiatric Association, 2000). Self-report studies in the general population have suggested that the promotion of underweight celebrity models leads to a negative body image and body dissatisfaction among adolescent girls and young adults (Groesz et al., 2002, Bell et al., 2007 and Legenbauer et al., 2008). Studies of this type also suggest that dissatisfaction with body weight and physical appearance is primarily associated with unhealthy weight reduction practices and eating disorders in young females (Grigg et al., 1996; Hill, 2006). Unrealistic assumptions about weight, body shape and eating have been found to be significantly higher among anorexic patients relative to controls and dieters (e.g., Cooper and Turner, 2000), suggesting that the desire for extreme thinness may be influenced by social pressures relating extreme thinness to desirability and beauty (Friedman et al., 2002 and Simon, 2007). An alternative hypothesis is that AN may be caused by a negative view of fatness and an intensive fear of becoming overweight (Bruch, 1982 and Vartanian et al., 2005). Rucker and Cash (1992) proposed that the body image includes at least two components: a perceptual body image (i.e., estimation of one's body size) and an attitudinal body image (i.e. cognitive, affective and behavioural concerns with one's body size); and Skrzypek et al. (2001) suggested that the second factor is more important than the former in causing body image disturbance in AN. Explicit attitudes are self-reported evaluations that people give when they are asked how much they like an object. Implicit attitudes are preferences that do not require introspective access to mental representation; implicit attitudes are thought to reflect an evaluation of which the respondent is not aware (Dovidio et al., 2002 and Gawronski et al., 2007). Implicit evaluations are mostly activated automatically and quickly, and can be identified through sophisticated experiments using individuals' response times to stimuli (i.e. without directly asking people how they feel or think about an object, Greenwald and Banaji, 1995). The explicit and implicit evaluations appear to affect people's behaviour through different pathways (Fazio et al., 1986). The main advantage of implicit evaluation is that it can estimate the patient's automatic responses toward various stimuli without directly asking them, thereby reducing the risk of socially desirable answering (Rudman, 2004). In the current research we were firstly interested in whether positive association with ultra-thin models or negative association with fatness could be the key motivation behind the ongoing pathological restrictive dieting behaviour in anorexia nervosa. Secondly, we wanted to investigate the representations of the ideal body figure in a healthy and a patient group. Thirdly, we wanted to examine the relationship between body dissatisfaction, drive for thinness and body figure evaluation. We used standard self-report methods to assess explicit evaluations and body dissatisfaction; and a modified version of the Affective Priming Test for implicit evaluation. Until now no study has investigated the implicit attitudes toward body figures in AN. Co-morbidity with anxiety and mood disorders has been reported frequently in AN (Kaye et al., 2004, Godart et al., 2005a, Godart et al., 2005b and Wildes et al., 2007). According to clinical observations, AN patients evidence mostly unipolar depression and half of the patients show anxiety disorders, too (Blinder et al., 2006). Depressed mood and anxiety disorder may have an influence on how people generally judge or evaluate an object. Therefore, we also examined whether anxiety and depression might influence the body image evaluation and body dissatisfaction in anorexia nervosa.