Date of Award

9-8-1990

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Psychology

First Advisor

David M. Stein

Abstract

The chronic, arduous restriction of food intake to lose weight has been termed dietary restraint. High restraint status may be conceptualized as a subclinical antecedent of bulimia and anorexia nervosa. Dietary restraint is associated with a paradoxical tendency to overeat or binge.Whereas dietary restraint behaviors per se are thought to be part of the eating disorders continuum, it is less certain whether other important clinical features, e.g., symptoms found in eating disordered patients, are also present in less severe form among dietary restrainers. Further research is warranted to investigate cognitive and affective features of subclinical groups, i.e., dietary restrainers. Attempts at experimental manipulations and assessment of such features as affective state among high and low restrainers, for example, are needed. Previous investigators have utilized correlational data from paper and pencil measures of these constructs only. Experimental manipulation of the behavior of restrained eaters will help lend validity to the conceptualization of differences among dietary restrainers and normals.The following topics are discussed in this paper. First, dietary restraint is defined and measurement of restraint is discussed. Second, the factor structure of the most common measures of restraint are detailed. Third, available literature on cognitive and affective characteristics unique to dietary restrainers is examined. Finally, a general discussion of the experimental paradigms that have been used to manipulate affective state and cognition then follows.This study examines whether or not certain affective, cognitive, and self-perception characteristics that have traditionally been assumed to be associated with severe eating disorders (bulimia and anorexia nervosa) are present to some degree in arduous dieters (high restrainers). These include: (a) the tendency to show irrational beliefs; (b) more pronounced changes toward a negative mood state than normals; (c) perceptions of personal ineffectiveness; (d) the tendency to become easily frustrated; (e) underestimation of one's performance on cognitive tasks; and (f) symptoms and problems known to be present among more serious cases of clinical eating disorders, e.g., body image disturbance and irrational beliefs about weight loss.The study involved a 2 (high versus low dietary restraint) x 2 (positive versus negative performance feedback) design. The dependent variable was mood change, which was assessed before and after feedback about performance. A number of accessory analyses compared high and low restraint subjects on several psychological variables mentioned above that are known to be related to eating problems of clinical severity.

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