Psychology and More

Our Abnormal Psychology course is studying eating disorders this week, so it’s timely that this comes from Mind Hacks. It reports on a study indicating women with symptoms of eating disorders are more accurate judges of their bodies (when compared with a panel of judges). Take a gander:

Mind Hacks: The ‘painful realism’ of eating disorders:

This shows a lack of a ’self serving attribution bias’ which is a normal tendency to over-attribute positive things to ourselves and negative things to other people or situations.

A recent review of the research suggested that this bias is usually strongly present in most people. It has been suggested that this may be useful, as it might emotionally cushion us from some of life’s hardships.

People with certain forms of mental illness, particularly depression, tend not to have this bias, however, meaning they actually view the world more accurately – an effect coined ‘depressive realism’.

Jansen’s study suggests a similar ‘painful realism’ effect may be present in people with eating disorders, although it’s not clear whether this is specific to body perception, or whether it is primarily associated with emotional difficulties that often accompany conditions like anorexia.

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