Impact of Subliminal Activation of Abandonment Schema on the Eating Behavior of Obese and Normal Weight Women: An Experimental Study

Abstract

Background: Schema focused cognitive- behavioral model proposed that patients with eating disorders (EDs) used bulimic behaviors in order to avoid or suppress negative affects that are triggered by early maladaptive schemas. Objectives: The aim of the present study was to compare normal weight and obese women in terms of the effect of the activation of abandonment schema. Patients and Methods: This was a 2-stage approach experimental study. In the first, 81 women (41 normal weight and 40 obese) completed the eating disorder examination questionnaire (EDE-Q) and eating attitude test-26 (EAT-26). In the second, 1 week later, all participants were randomly exposed to subliminal abandonment stimuli (experimental group) or subliminal neutral stimuli (control group). The subliminal abandonment stimuli was the word loneliness and the neutral stimuli was the word gallery. Each word was presented on a visual screen for 2 milliseconds (ms). Then, the participants were instructed that they were able to eat pistachios provided by the experimenter. The weight of consumed food was recorded as the dependent variable. Results: Both obese and normal weight women exposed to abandonment themes (loneliness) consumed significantly more food than their counterparts exposed to neutral stimuli. The univariate analysis of covariance indicated that normal weight women in the control group did not differ from obese women in the control group on the amount of consumed pistachios after controlling EDE-Q, EAT-26, and body mass index (BMI). Moreover, the univariate analysis of covariance showed that the amount of food consumed by normal weight women in the experimental condition and obese women in the experimental group did not differ when BMI, EDE-Q, and EAT-26 were controlled. Conclusions: These results provide indirect support for schemata based theory of eating disorders. In other words, abandonment themes activate eating behaviors that presumably serve to avoid negative emotions.