Social dependency and social support in bulimic and nonbulimic women

Abstract

We tested the hypotheses that bulimic women would be characterized by a high degree of social dependency and low levels of social support and that bulimic and nonbulimic women would differ in the interaction of these two variables. A secondary hypothesis, derived from Boskind-White and White's feminist account of bulimia, was that bulimic women are characterized in particular by social dependency on men and a lack of social support from men. A group of 23 normal-weight bulimic women were compared with 38 control subjects and were found to differ only in that they reported more social dependency. There was no evidence that bulimics were lacking in social support, compared with controls, nor was there any relation between bulimia and the interaction of social dependency with social support. Contrary to Boskind-White and White's theory, both bulimic and nonbulimic women reported more social dependency on men than on women, and the size of this discrepancy was found to be equal for both samples.