Eating disorder symptomatology and achievement-related conflict in college-age women
Abstract
A nonrandom sample of 104 female undergraduates completed a survey instrument assessing eating-disorder symptomatology, cultural fear of success, intrapsychic fear of success, self-deprecation and insecurity, trait anxiety, need to achieve, level of vocational aspiration, confidence in achieving one's job goal, indices of academic self-sabotaging behavior, and procrastination. Significant zero-order correlations were found between eating-disorder symptomatology and cultural fear of success, intrapsychic fear of success, self-deprecation and insecurity, and trait anxiety. When variability due to trait anxiety was partialed out, the relationship between self-deprecation and insecurity and eating-disorder behavior remained significant. However, when trait anxiety was controlled, the relationships between eating-disorder symptomatology and both cultural fear of success and intrapsychic fear of success fell to nonsignificance. Moreover, when self-deprecation and insecurity was partialed, the relationship between trait anxiety and eating-disorder symptomatology fell to nonsignificance. Nonsignificant zero-order correlations were observed between eating-disorder symptomatology and the remaining predictors. Thus self-deprecation and insecurity was the one predictor in the study which explained significant variability in eating-disorder symptomatology in both zero-order and partial correlations. A plausible model for the development of eating-disorder symptomatology was suggested, emphasizing the impact of early childhood environment on self-confidence and self-acceptance. Suggestions for further research aimed at providing more definite support for this model included longitudinal studies of the effects of differing styles of parenting and retrospective studies of women in treatment for eating disorders.
Subject Area
Psychotherapy|Womens studies
Recommended Citation
Chumley, Ellen White, "Eating disorder symptomatology and achievement-related conflict in college-age women" (1991). ETD Collection for Fordham University. AAI9118835.
https://research.library.fordham.edu/dissertations/AAI9118835
