Abstract
Objective: The current study aims to compare the defense mechanisms and personality traits among teenagers with avoidant restrictive food intake disorder (ARFID) and normal individuals. Materials and Methods: Incurrent casual-comparative study, 220 teenagers with an average age of 16.74±6.08 and age range of 13-17 were randomly selected from among high school students, who were diagnosed with avoidant restrictive food intake disorder in fall 2014 and 220 other peers with matching demographic characteristics were selected as the control group. Both groups were asked to fill Eysenckpersonality questionnaire and Andrews’ Defense Style Questionnaire. Data was analyzed via multivariate analysis of variance. Results: The average scores of teenagers with ARFID was higher than the control group regarding immature and neurotic defense style, neuroticism and extraversion; with respect to mature defense style variable average scores of teenagers with ARFID was lower comparing to control group. Thus, it can be concluded that there is a significant difference between personality traits and defence styles of teenagers with ARFID and normal teenagers.
Highlights
Due to lack of studies in comparing the defence mechanisms among teenagers with different personality traits, current study was conducted in order to compare personality traits and defense mechanisms in teenagers with Avoidant Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID) and normal individuals
Questionnaires and measures: Andrews’ Defense Style Questionnaire: This questionnaire was designed based on the hierarchical pattern of defense mechanisms with 88 items in order to examine 24 mechanisms and it empirically assesses the conscious aspects of defense styles in daily life (Andrews et al, 1993)
Results show that adolescents with ARFID use the immature and neurotic defense mechanisms more than the normal population
Summary
Defense mechanisms are adaptive and everyone uses them, they could lead to obsessive compulsive and neurotic behavior if being used in extreme manner (Freud, 1905/1953). A lot of maladaptive mechanisms and styles are related to the negative health measures, such as personality disorders and depression (Zamani et al, 2014). Studies show a relationship between immature and neurotic defence styles in adolescents (Jamilian et al, 2013) and assert that psychological variables that have an impact on adolescents’ tendency towards the defense mechanisms are personality characteristics.
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