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.