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Self-concept and literalism in bulimia
Abstract
Bulimia is an eating disorder which appears to be associated with low self-meaningfulness. Self-meaningfulness refers to the degree of importance of the self in the individual's self-construct system. It was hypothesized that bulimic women focus on physical appearance, but neglect other aspects of themselves to a greater extent than controls. It was also hypothesized that bulimics are more literal than nonbulimics. Literalism is a way of thinking, feeling, or doing, which implies absolute interpretations of events or relationships. Literalism has two components: literal-relating, and literal-separating. Literal-relating involves treating constructs or various aspects of constructs as equivalent. Literal-separating is characterized by the absence of relationships between aspects or dimensions that logically, should be at least somewhat related. Dichotomous thinking, perfectionism, impulsivity, nonassertiveness, and anxiety have been associated with literalism and bulimia. Bulimics are often perceived as being resistant to change. This study examined the hypothesis that bulimics do not focus on change as much as their peers. With regard to meaningfulness, results showed that bulimic subjects gave significantly lower extremity ratings on positively-valued self-descriptions than control subjects, and significantly higher extremity ratings on negatively-valued self-descriptions. Based on self-report, physical appearance was found to be more important to bulimic subjects than to normals. Bulimics were also shown to be somewhat stronger literal-separators than controls. However, they obtained lower literal-relating scores than controls. Bulimics also were found to focus on change to the same extent as controls. Results indicated that bulimics are committed to negative self-perceptions but find it difficult to make other kinds of predictions about themselves or the world. They find it hard to construe positive associations of themselves, particularly in regard to food. Thus, change can be difficult to implement. Additional research is needed to further confirm the presence of literal-separating in bulimia. Discovering how bulimics construe change, will also be important.
Subject Area
Psychotherapy
Recommended Citation
Radisewitz, Diane Kay, "Self-concept and literalism in bulimia" (1987). ETD collection for University of Nebraska-Lincoln. AAI8803769.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI8803769