Psychological Causes of Bulimia - A2 Psychology AQA A

Psychological Causes of Bulimia

1. Behavioural explanations - AO1

   • Social Learning Theory (SLT) - imitating our role models (e.g. skinny models/actresses)
   • Operant conditioning - praise/feeling good about weight loss, acting as a reinforcement
   • Who's vulnerable? - people with low self-esteem, perfectionists (OCD), high social anxiety, impulsive, controlling parents

2. Behavioural explanations - AO2

   • Groez et al (2002)
     • Meta-review of 25 studies.
       • Found a positive correlation between dissatisfaction and exposure to media images
   • Becker et al (2002)
     • Study done in Fiji (cross-cultural)
       • Found ED's didn't exist in Fiji until TV
         • Five years after, numbers of both AN and BN sufferers rose

3. Cognitive - AO1

   • Coopers Model
     • Most people with BN have suffered an early traumatic experience
       • Because of this they feel worthless
     • As they grow up they are extra sensitive to comments about themselves or media images
     • They learn that fat = bad, thin = good and begin to diet
       • They believe loosing weight will result in others liking them
     • The maintenance cycle
       • Person is feeling low so binge to feel better
         • Start to worry about getting fat so purge
           • Causes them to feel worthless, causing the cycle to repeat.
   • Polivy
     • BN sufferers have poor self-image, causing stress
       • Binge eating is a way of coping with this
     • Sufferers can blame their poor self-image on the binging, rather than their problems
       • An avoidance tactic

4. Cognitive - AO2

   • Cooper evidence - Leung et al
     • Lack of parental bonding was linked to dis-functional beliefs among BN sufferes
       • These have been linked to binging and purging in other studies.
   • Polivy evidence
     • Studied the effects of stress on dieters
     • Compared non-stressed to stressed, and found stressed ate more food
       • Supports binge eating being not about a desire for food, but a coping mechanism of stress