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Relations between implicit attitudes towards eating disorder stimuli and disordered eating symptoms among at-risk college women.

Author
Abstract
:

This study examined implicit attitudes towards different eating disorder (ED) relevant stimuli- emaciation, hard-exercise, the self, and eating related stimuli-and their relationship with explicit ED symptoms in two symptomatic samples of college-aged women. Study 1 found that positive implicit attitudes towards eating and self-relevant images were associated with greater state body image satisfaction and self-esteem and with less ED-related intentions. Study 2 found that positive implicit attitudes towards eating and self-relevant images were associated with less trait global ED psychopathology and distress and greater self-esteem. Overall, positive implicit evaluations of eating and self-related stimuli were negatively associated with ED symptoms and related psychopathology and positively related to self-esteem. However, implicit attitudes towards emaciation and hard exercise were not associated with explicit ED symptoms in either sample. These findings suggest that implicit attitudes towards eating and self-related stimuli, in particular, may be viable targets for reconditioning in novel treatment paradigms such as therapeutic evaluative conditioning interventions.

Year of Publication
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2021
Journal
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Eating behaviors
Volume
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41
Number of Pages
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101499
ISSN Number
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1471-0153
URL
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https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S1471-0153(21)00026-X
DOI
:
10.1016/j.eatbeh.2021.101499
Short Title
:
Eat Behav
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