Reexamining the restraint pathway as a conditional process among adolescent girls: When does dieting link body dissatisfaction to bulimia?

The mediational sequence from body dissatisfaction through dieting to bulimia-often referred to as the "restraint pathway"-has been validated in numerous samples of adolescent girls, but the prevalence rate of bulimic pathology pales in comparison to rates of body dissatisfaction and dieting in this risk group. This discrepancy indicates that the restraint pathway may only apply to adolescent girls possessing certain characteristics or experiencing certain circumstances. Accordingly, the current study examined the moderating roles of thin-ideal internalization, interoceptive deficits, and age by using self-report data from a community sample of 353 middle school (n = 115), high school (n = 112), and college girls (n = 126).

Is fat talk more believable than self-affirming body talk?

Two experiments tested the extent to which the believability of women's body statements (fat talk or self-affirming) depends on their body type (thin or overweight). Experiment 1 (N=130) revealed fat talk was more believable than self-affirming talk regardless of body type. Experiment 2's (N=125) results showed, as hypothesized, that overweight women's fat talk was significantly more believable than fat talk by thin women and self-affirming talk by either thin or overweight women.

In it together: Mother talk of weight concerns moderates negative outcomes of encouragement to lose weight on daughter body dissatisfaction and disordered eating.

Mothers' influence on their daughters is important for understanding girls' disordered eating and body dissatisfaction. Direct maternal encouragement of daughters to lose weight is linked to daughters' development of bulimic symptoms, and additional findings indicate that daughters whose mothers merely talk about dieting and body dissatisfaction are more likely to be diagnosed with an eating disorder. The current study extends such research by examining the interactive contributions of maternal encouragement to lose weight and maternal dieting discussions to the prediction of early adolescent daughters' body dissatisfaction and disordered eating over the middle school period.

Drive for muscularity is heightened in body-dissatisfied men who socially compare.

Men's drive for muscularity refers to the degree to which men wish to increase their muscularity. Men who are more extreme in their drive for muscularity face dangerous consequences, such as increased levels of eating pathology and use of performance-enhancing substances. The aim of this study was to predict men's drive for muscularity, and to test whether hypothesized predictive factors vary across age groups.

Thin or overweight women's fat talk: which is worse for other women's body satisfaction?

Fat talk is not merely correlated with, but appears to be one of the causes of body dissatisfaction in other women. Moderators of fat talk's deleterious effects, however, have not yet been identified. This experiment tested whether the body type of the fat-talker affects listeners' body satisfaction.

An Experimental Test of Women's Body Dissatisfaction Reduction through Self-Affirmation.

Background: Body dissatisfaction (BD)--a health concern in its own right-often is positioned early in the causal chain toward eating pathology, and is a practical point of intervention for those aiming to reduce its negative health consequences. One approach to reducing people's resistance to receipt of other unwanted health information (e.g.

Who is most likely to fat talk? A social comparison perspective.

Negative talk about food, weight, or the body that occurs commonly among women--fat talk--is gaining increasing attention. Whereas its negative eating pathology and body esteem correlates have received continued empirical validation, what is not yet known is who is most likely to fat talk. We propose that social comparison processes underlie and motivate much of fat talk.

Heterosocial involvement, peer pressure for thinness, and body dissatisfaction among young adolescent girls.

The purpose of this study was to examine longitudinal connections among young adolescent heterosocial involvement (i.e., mixed-sex interactions), peer pressure for thinness, and body dissatisfaction.

Preventing the development of body issues in adolescent girls through intervention with their mothers.

The purpose of this study was to test the efficacy of the Healthy Girls Project, an ecologically based, targeted prevention program aimed at discouraging the development of body-related problems in middle-school girls via an intervention directly and only with their mothers. Participants were 31 seventh- and eighth-grade girls and their mothers. The empirically based intervention comprised a series of 4 weekly workshops that had both interactive psychoeducational components and behavioral components (e.

Perceiving racism in ambiguous situations: who relies on easy-to-use information?

In situations that are ambiguous with regard to the presence of discrimination, how do people arrive at their conclusions that discrimination has (or has not) taken place? This question was examined from a motivated social cognition perspective via the interaction of two factors: the prototype effect--the notion that ambiguously discriminatory behavior is more likely to be perceived as discriminatory when the executor is prototypical and the need for cognitive closure--the tendency to jump hastily to and seize on an answer. Results provided replicating evidence of the prototype effect among European American participants but not among African American participants. Specifically, European Americans were likely to perceive ambiguously racist behavior enacted by a prototypical executor (i.

Longitudinal examination of maternal psychological control and adolescents' self-competence as predictors of bulimic symptoms among boys and girls.

Objective: Because bulimia nervosa is a problem among adolescents, it remains essential to examine its precursors. The specific etiologic chain investigated in this study is such that maternal psychological control first leads to adolescents' lowered self-competence, which in turn predicts bulimic symptoms.

Method: Self-report data were collected from 58 boys and 73 girls during sixth, seventh, and eighth grades.

Who believes us when we try to conceal our prejudices? The effectiveness of moral credentials with in-groups versus out-groups.

Moral credentials are pieces of evidence accrued by individuals that can later be presented, intentionally or unintentionally, as a record of their lack of prejudice (B. Monin & D. T.

Predicting termination type from client-therapist agreement on the severity of the presenting problem.

Discrepancies between clients and therapists in their perceptions of the severity of the client's presenting problem were tested for their utility in predicting both premature and mutual termination. Eight problem types were examined, and analyses were conducted within a survival analysis framework. Across the majority of problem types, results indicated that greater discrepancies between clients and therapists lowered the odds of mutual termination; however, greater discrepancies did not in turn increase the odds of premature termination.