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The Influence of Body Dissatisfaction on Set Shifting Ability

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Abstract

Set shifting, or the ability to shift back and forth between multiple tasks or mental sets, has been shown to be impaired in individuals with eating disorders. The purpose of this study was to experimentally examine set shifting among acutely body dissatisfied women. Participants included 146 undergraduate women selected for self-reported high or low body shame. Each participant was randomized to one of three still-image induction groups: body dissatisfaction, negative affect, or neutral affect. Immediately following the induction, participants were administered the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) to assess set shifting. A 2 (high vs. low body shame) × 3 (induction group condition) ANOVA was conducted on the total number of WCST perseverative errors. The results suggest that for women who feel relatively satisfied with their bodies, thin ideal or negative affective images do not impact set shifting performance. However, for women who experience body shame, acute body dissatisfaction and negative affect may impact executive functioning as demonstrated by set shifting performance. In other words, women who endorse body shame may have difficulty shifting set during moments of increased negative affect, regardless of the general or body-specific nature of the negative affect.

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Notes

  1. Two outliers were identified in the low body shame/neutral affect induction combined group upon examination of a normal Q–Q plot; these two participants made 21 and 25 perseverative errors with the remaining participants ranging from 3 to 15 errors with 77 % of individual making eight or fewer perseverative errors. These outliers were removed in all analyses related to the interactive hypothesis; removal of these outliers did not affect the significance of the omnibus F test.

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Conflict of Interest

Megan B. Harney and Anna M. Bardone-Cone declare that they have no conflict of interest. The authors did not receive grant funding for this research.

Informed Consent

Approval for this study was granted by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. All procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the IRB. Informed consent was obtained prior to study participation.

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No animal studies were carried out by the authors for this article.

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  1. Megan B. Harney

    Present address: Department of Psychology, 612 North Lombardy St, PO Box 843033, Richmond, VA, 23284, USA

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  1. Department of Psychology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, CB #3270 Davie Hall, Chapel Hill, NC, 27599, USA

    Megan B. Harney & Anna M. Bardone-Cone

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Correspondence to Megan B. Harney.

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Harney, M.B., Bardone-Cone, A.M. The Influence of Body Dissatisfaction on Set Shifting Ability. Cogn Ther Res 38, 439–448 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10608-014-9612-1

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