Explanations for Anorexia Nervosa (AQA A Level Psychology): Flashcards

Kaye et al. (1991) found lower levels of the dopamine metabolite homovanillic acid (HVA) in people with AN.

Healthy participants felt pleasure but AN participants felt anxiety, suggesting restricting food may be a way of reducing dopamine release and anxiety.

AN participants had reduced responses to sweet tastes in the right anterior insula, supporting the neural explanation.

A neurotransmitter imbalance could be treated using drug therapy.

Three genes associated with AN are also associated with a perfectionist personality, which many people with AN display (Bachner-Melman et al., 2007).

The equal environments assumption is that MZ and DZ twins are treated with equal similarity. Joseph (2002) argues MZ twins are treated more alike, so heritability estimates may be inflated.

False.

The research is correlational, and the levels may be an effect of malnutrition rather than a cause.

Biological explanations reduce AN to genes or neurotransmitter imbalances, ignoring environmental and psychological factors.

With a diathesis-stress view: genes create a vulnerability that is only expressed if the person meets stressors such as pressure to lose weight.

They assume the same mechanisms apply to males and females, overlooking that AN is far more prevalent in females and that body image pressures differ by gender.

Dysfunctional patterns of family interaction.

Enmeshment, overprotectiveness, rigidity and conflict avoidance.

Because more females than males experience AN, family systems theory often focuses on the mother-daughter relationship.

It can prevent or reduce arguments, as attention focuses on the member with AN, who takes responsibility for the family's problems.

Enmeshment is when family members are overly involved with each other, with poorly defined roles and boundaries, so that identities become tied up and individuality is inhibited.

Adolescents lacking independence develop AN as a form of protest and to gain a sense of self, distinguishing themselves from the family unit.

Autonomy and control are the ability of an individual to act independently and make choices according to their own free will, not the decisions of others.

AN is a struggle for self-management, identity and effectiveness separate from the family, which is a normal need in adolescent development.

As distortions of body image, misperceptions of internal states and a paralysing sense of ineffectiveness.

True.

The adolescent comes to view weight loss as a visible measure of their autonomy and control.

People with AN showed greater disturbances of autonomy, a more controlling self-regulation style, less separation from family members and poorer family communication.

Domineering, intrusive and dismissive of the daughter's need for independence, so self-starvation becomes an attempt to gain control over her own body.

112 female AN patients showed a significantly greater desire to be autonomous than controls, suggesting thwarted autonomy is a risk factor.

Robin et al. (1995) found 67% of participants had recovered after 16 months of behavioural family systems therapy, rising to three quarters at one-year follow-up.

Families of 30 Portuguese women with eating disorders were no more enmeshed or rigid than other families, possibly because self-report questionnaires were used rather than observer ratings.

False.

Enmeshment, rigidity and conflict avoidance may be consequences of living with someone with AN, though supporters argue the direction is irrelevant for treatment.

It suggests AN develops from family dynamics, overlooking free will and cognitive factors such as distorted thinking about body image.

Its focus on mother-daughter relationships exaggerates gender differences and struggles to explain why AN occurs in males at all.

Indirectly, by observing and imitating a model who provides a template for behaviour, especially one the observer respects or sees as successful or glamorous.

Vicarious reinforcement is when an individual is more likely to imitate behaviour they observe being rewarded, e.g. a model praised for losing weight.

Adolescents are especially vulnerable to social learning of AN, as they are searching for an identity and heightened self-esteem.

It occurs more where beauty is associated with thinness, and low body weight is mainly associated with attractiveness in females.

Because of the glamour of celebrity, so they diet and exercise to achieve thinness, vicariously reinforced by the fame and success they observe.

False.

Girls and women are exposed to more, which explains why more females than males are affected by AN.

Cultivation theory explains how increased interaction with the media leads to internalising messages of thinness, creating a new reality in which thinness brings beauty, power and happiness.

The strongest predictor of eating disorder symptoms was how many friends and schoolmates had media access, not the girls' own viewing, suggesting indirect acquisition through peer discussion.

Peers act as role models, with dieting among friends significantly related to unhealthy weight control such as diet pills or purging.

Traditional values favouring plumpness gave way to the Western thinness ideal. Ozawa et al. (2005) found more AN symptoms in women who read thinness-promoting magazines.

SLT principles underpin AN treatments using reinforcement and the modelling of adaptive eating behaviours.

Why eating does not restart when compliments stop and negative comments begin.

It cannot explain why only some women develop AN despite the same media exposure, so another factor such as genetic vulnerability or childhood trauma must be involved.

False.

It is based on Western beauty ideals that may not apply in collectivist cultures, so it is culturally biased.

It assumes thinness pressures affect women more, overlooking males, for whom a muscular ideal leads to bigorexia (Jones & Morgan, 2010).

Cognitive distortions about body shape and weight, most significantly a disturbed perception of one's own body image.

They lead to very strict rules about eating. Rule-breaking causes self-disgust and lowers self-esteem, leading to more severe AN.

Connecting self-worth to appearance only, perceiving the body as overweight when underweight, and faulty beliefs about eating and dieting.

Irrational beliefs are unrealistic ideas that lead to the development and maintenance of AN.

All-or-nothing thinking is the belief 'if I'm not thin, I'm fat', with no middle ground.

Putting the worst interpretation on a minor event, e.g. 'I ate half a biscuit today, I've got no willpower at all'.

Magical thinking is the belief that reaching an (usually unreasonable) target weight would bring happiness and popularity.

When goals are achieved, the individual raises their standards higher, trapped in a cycle of pursuing an unattainable goal.

In 728 women with AN, childhood perfectionism predicted later AN, suggesting it precedes onset and is a risk factor.

People with AN showed very little activation in attention areas when viewing images of themselves but not of others, so distortions are specific to their own body image.

True.

Dalle Grave et al. (2014) found 26 hospitalised women gained weight and had fewer body shape concerns, maintained at one-year follow-up.

Low self-esteem and a high need for perfectionism.

Younger AN participants were no worse at set-shifting than controls, suggesting cognitive inflexibility is a consequence of AN, not a cause.

Cornelissen et al. (2013) found no significant differences between women with and without AN in estimating their body size, so over-estimation is not pathological.

True.

It suggests distorted thoughts inevitably lead to AN, ignoring the many people who share these cognitions without developing it.

Nurture, as thought patterns are shaped by experience and social pressures, but it may neglect biological influences such as genetics.