Abstract
Body dissatisfaction (i.e., a negative attitude towards one’s own physical appearance) is assumed to originate from a perceived discrepancy between the actual physical appearance (i.e., actual body image) and the desired ideal state of the body (i.e., ideal body image). We assessed implicit beliefs about these two aspects of the body image independently using two Relational Responding Tasks (RRT) in a sample of participants who were either low or high in explicitly reported body dissatisfaction. As hypothesized, differences in body dissatisfaction exerted a differential influence on the two RRT scores. The implicit belief that one is thin was less pronounced in participants who were strongly dissatisfied with their body relative to participants who were more satisfied with their body. The implicit desire to be thin (i.e., thin ideal body image), in contrast, tended to be more pronounced in participants who exhibited a high degree of body dissatisfaction as compared to participants who exhibited a low degree of body dissatisfaction. Hierarchical regression analyses also revealed that the RRT scores were predictive of self-reported body dissatisfaction, even over and above the predictive validity of some (but not all) explicit predictors of body dissatisfaction that were included in the present study. More generally, these findings contribute to the empirical validation of the RRT as a measure of implicit beliefs in the context of body dissatisfaction.
Highlights
Heider et al: Body Dissatisfaction Revisited dieting behavior, negative affect, and the causation and maintenance of eating disorders (American Psychiatric Association, 2013; Fairburn & Harrison, 2003; Stice, 2001, 2002)
The mean response latencies observed in Blocks 3 and 4 were subtracted from the mean response latencies observed in Blocks 6 and 7, respectively, and each difference score was divided by the standard deviation of the respective response latencies
The degree to which people are dissatisfied with their own body is assumed to reflect a discrepancy between the actual and the ideal body image (e.g., Cooper & Taylor, 1988; Strauman et al, 1991; Williamson et al, 1993)
Summary
Body Dissatisfaction Revisited: On the Importance of Implicit Beliefs about Actual and Ideal Body Image. In a review of 27 IRAP studies (Hughes & BarnesHolmes, 2013), good internal consistency estimates were observed only if the training criteria for the practice blocks were quite liberal (i.e., mean response latencies between 3000 ms and 5000 ms, error rates between 65 % and 70 %; e.g., Barnes-Holmes, Murtagh, Barnes-Holmes, & Stewart, 2010; Campbell, Barnes-Holmes, Barnes-Holmes, & Stewart, 2011; Drake et al, 2010) This observation may be problematic because social desirability and impression management concerns are more likely to affect task performance as participants are given more time to respond on each individual trial. Participants were asked to rate the target statements used in the two RRTs and to complete the EDI and CDRSs for actual and ideal body image. In the low body dissatisfaction group, the mean level of body dissatisfaction was very high, even compared to a sample of eating disorder patients (i.e., 46.4 vs. 27.9)
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