Differences in alexithymia, emotional awareness, and facial emotion recognition under conditions of self-focused attention among women with high and low eating disorder symptoms: a 2 x 2 experimental study.

Background: Women with eating disorders generally perform more poorly on measures of alexithymia, defined as difficulty identifying and describing emotions, and theory of mind, or the ability to infer what others are thinking and feeling. The extent to which these abilities may be influenced by variables such as self-focused attention, or directing attention toward internally generated information, has yet to be investigated. Thus, the purpose of the present study was to examine differences between women high and low in disordered eating symptoms on measures of emotional awareness and facial affect recognition under conditions of high and low self-focused attention.

Construct validity of the Levels of Emotional Awareness Scale among women high in eating disorder symptoms: a cross-sectional study.

Purpose: The Levels of Emotional Awareness Scale (LEAS), a measure of the ability to identify and describe one's own and others' emotions, may complement work with women with disordered eating symptoms. The study purpose was to (a) examine differences in hand (LEAS) versus computerized (e-LEAS) scoring methods and (b) examine the e-LEAS' psychometric properties, including convergent and discriminant validity, among women endorsing eating disorder symptoms.

Methods: Forty women (ages 18-21) scoring high on a self-report measure of disordered eating symptoms completed the LEAS and measures of convergent validity including a self-report measure of alexithymia (the perceived ability to identify and describe one's own emotions) and a measure of facial affect recognition as well as discriminant validity, including affect and facial memory.

Examining positive body image, sport confidence, flow state, and subjective performance among student athletes and non-athletes.

The primary purpose of the present study was to examine differences in positive body image, specifically body appreciation and functionality appreciation, between student athletes and non-athletes. A secondary purpose was to examine the relationships between positive body image and other sport-related variables. Seventy-nine National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I student athletes (M = 19.

Symptoms of Psychopathology Within Groups of Eating-Disordered, Restrained Eating, and Unrestrained Eating Individuals.

Objective: While eating-disordered individuals have shown high levels of comorbid psychopathology, there has not been an assessment of these symptoms across groups exhibiting different forms of problematic eating behavior.

Method: Using 1,122 participants recruited via Amazon Mechanical Turk, this study examined self-reported differences between controls, restrained eaters, and individuals meeting criteria for binge eating disorder and bulimia nervosa on several measures of psychopathology unrelated to eating.

Results: On nearly all outcome measures, eating-disordered participants had greater symptoms of psychopathology compared to restrained eaters, who had greater levels compared to controls.