Eating disorders, perceived control, assertiveness and hostility

There are anecdotal claims that eating disorder patients perceive themselves as highly controlled by the family and by society, but that they do not show assertive behaviour towards controllers. Anorexic and bulimic females were compared with female psychiatric patients, dieters and non-dieting cont...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inBritish journal of clinical psychology Vol. 29 ( Pt 3); p. 327
Main Authors Williams, G J, Chamove, A S, Millar, H R
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published England 01.09.1990
Subjects
Adolescent
Adult
Anorexia Nervosa - psychology
Assertiveness
Bulimia - psychology
Diet, Reducing - psychology
Family
Female
Hostility
Humans
Internal-External Control
Personality Tests
Psychometrics
Social Environment
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Summary:There are anecdotal claims that eating disorder patients perceive themselves as highly controlled by the family and by society, but that they do not show assertive behaviour towards controllers. Anorexic and bulimic females were compared with female psychiatric patients, dieters and non-dieting controls on measures of eating disorder symptomatology, locus of control, assertiveness, inwardly directed hostility, family control and family encouragement of independence. Eating disorder patients reported significantly more external control, more inwardly directed hostility, less self-assertion and less family encouragement of independence than dieters and non-dieting controls, but they did not differ from psychiatric controls. Most of the characteristics seen in eating disorder subjects were also reported by psychiatric controls.
ISSN:0144-6657
DOI:10.1111/j.2044-8260.1990.tb00889.x