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Symptoms of social anxiety in bulimic, dieting, and non-dieting women
Abstract
Social anxiety has been theorized as being a potentially influential factor in the etiology and maintenance of bulimia nervosa, although to date there has been a lack of direct empirical research conducted to address this proposition. The present study compared bulimic, dieting, and non-dieting women with regard to social anxiety, approval motivation, fear of negative evaluation, and self-consciousness. Overall, the bulimic women reported significantly more social anxiety, fear of negative evaluation, approval motivation, and public self-consciousness than either dieting or non-dieting women. The sole exception was private self-consciousness, where bulimic women did not differ significantly from either the dieting or non-dieting women. In addition, the dieting women reported significantly greater fears of negative evaluation, social anxiety, and public self-consciousness than the non-dieting sample. Dieting women and non-dieting women, however, did not differ significantly in reported levels of approval motivation or private self-consciousness. Discriminant function analyses offered additional confirmation that social anxiety, fear of negative evaluation, approval motivation, and public self-consciousness may be discriminating features of women with the diagnosis of bulimia nervosa. The aforementioned factors together were able to accurately classify 75.8% of the bulimic sample. The current findings are discussed within the framework of a psychobiological theory of social anxiety, and its potential application to the development of bulimia nervosa. Implications for the assessment and treatment of social anxiety in bulimia are discussed.
Subject Area
Psychotherapy|Behaviorial sciences|Womens studies
Recommended Citation
Halstenson Bumby, Nancy Ann, "Symptoms of social anxiety in bulimic, dieting, and non-dieting women" (1996). ETD collection for University of Nebraska-Lincoln. AAI9620340.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI9620340