Graduation Year

2023

Document Type

Campus Only Senior Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Department

Psychology

Reader 1

Lahnna Catalino

Reader 2

Stacey Wood

Rights Information

© 2022 Josephine S Dodd

Abstract

There has been a fair amount of research into the connection between social anxiety and binge eating disorder and some on how anxiety worsens resistance to eating disorder treatment but very little on the connection between these two. This study examined the research question and separate elements of whether experiencing more social anxiety causes greater resistance to treatment for BED as a result of higher levels of emotional eating. These musings were founded upon escape theory, and in order to test them, a clinical sample of people with BED were tested for their degree of social anxiety, level of emotional eating, and resistance to eating disorder treatment. This involved participants filling out the Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale, the 2–Item Mindful Eating Questionnaire, and the Eating Disorders Recovery Questionnaire. I anticipate that a greater degree of social anxiety will cause more severe resistance to treatment for BED, that more social anxiety will lead to more emotional eating, that emotional eating will cause more resistance to treatment, and that emotional eating will mediate the relationship between a greater degree of social anxiety and greater resistance to treatment. This topic is of great significance to the psychological field because it could allow clinicians to better understand why certain people with BED struggle to recover and subsequently allow them to better combat this problem.

Download

This thesis is restricted to the Claremont Colleges current faculty, students, and staff.

Share

COinS