Self-Views and Behaviors
Abstract
Body-Focused Repetitive Behaviors (BFRB) are significantly underrepresented in psychology research, and little is known on their characteristics and relationship to self-esteem, despite the serious impairments they cause many individuals. Two hundred and ninety-five undergraduate students (M=18.61 years, SD=0.78) completed an online survey composed of measures related to BFRB presence and severity, personality, perfectionism, emotion regulation, emotional reactivity, narcissism, and global and contingent self-esteem. There were no consistent patterns of association between BFRB severity and contingencies of self-esteem. However, BFRBs disorder severities were associated consistently with measures of global self-esteem, vulnerable narcissism, emotion regulation, emotional reactivity, and body dysmorphia. These findings suggest that attention to adaptive and maladaptive contingencies of self-esteem for treating BFRBs might be questionable. Instead, attention to maladaptive global self-views and other constructs might be more useful. Moreover an individual approach must be taken in clinical practice when considering the effects of contingencies on a person’s disorder severity.
Subject
self-esteembody focused repetitive behaviors
BFRBs
clinical psychology
body dysmorphia
narcissism
vulnerable narcissism
grandiose narcissism
emotion regulation
emotional reactivity
perfectionism
hair pulling
trichotillomania
skin picking
nail biting
nail picking
teeth grinding
cheek biting
contingencies of self-esteem
self worth
Citation
Gould, Anna Beatrix (2017). Self-Views and Behaviors. Undergraduate Research Scholars Program. Available electronically from https : / /hdl .handle .net /1969 .1 /164494.