Anorexic Behavior, Female Competition and Stress: Developing the Female Competition Stress Test

Abstract

The FCST (Female-Female Competition Stress Test) was constructed to assess stress from adolescent female-female competition. Such stress is particularly relevant to the Reproductive Suppression Hypothesis that has been suggested as one possible explanation for the development of anorexic type behavior in young women. A series of items generated an initial test in the first phase of development. In the second phase, three studies were conducted to assess reliability and validity. Female undergraduates retrospectively rated the female-female competition stress they had experienced as adolescents, and their responses were factor-analyzed. In a second group of subjects, FCST scores were correlated with a measure of anxiety. In the third study, three samples provided prototypicality ratings of the test items to determine both the agreement among raters and which items were not sufficiently prototypical of female-female competition stress to be retained. In the final phase, the responses of adolescent girls to the FCST and several measures of body image were factor analyzed, showing the utility of the FCST.