Alexithymia, body image and disordered eating in fashion models and student athletes.

PURPOSE: Fashion models and athletes are considered at risk for eating disorders, but research has produced mixed findings and little insight into psychological risk factors. Body-focused performance is common to both occupations, but emotional risk factors like alexithymia and body-image particularities have not been compared between them. This study aimed to: (1) examine the levels of alexithymia and affective states among female fashion models and athletes as body-performing occupations, and a control group, and (2) compare multidimensional body image and disordered eating among these groups. METHODS: Data from 351 females aged 16-30 were compared among three samples: fashion models (n = 88), student athletes (n = 84) and control students (n = 179), who completed measures for alexithymia, affective states, multidimensional body image, and disordered eating. RESULTS: Fashion models had significantly lower alexithymia compared with the other groups, and lower negative affect than controls. Positive affect was significantly lower among controls than the other groups. Body image comparisons revealed significantly higher fitness evaluation and orientation in fashion models and athletes compared to controls. Fashion models had significantly higher appearance orientation than the other groups. Student athletes had significantly higher appearance evaluation than controls and higher fitness evaluation than fashion models. Disordered eating did not differ among groups. CONCLUSION: Lower alexithymia among fashion models is discussed in the context of emotional labor and artistic public performance. The findings suggest that body-focused performance may have emotional benefits and may drive higher body-image investment and satisfaction. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: Level III, case-control analytic study.

Association of sense of coherence and supernatural beliefs with death anxiety and death depression among Romanian cancer patients.

The aim of this cross-sectional study was to examine the association of supernatural beliefs and sense of coherence with death anxiety and death depression in a Romanian sample of cancer patients. We found support for the terror management theory worldview defence hypothesis postulating the presence of a curvilinear relation between death anxiety and supernatural beliefs among cancer patients. Results conformed to an inverted U-shape quadratic regression, indicating that cancer patients who scored moderately on supernatural beliefs were afraid of death the most, while death anxiety was lowest for the extreme atheists and extreme believers in supernatural entities.

Behavioural responses to facial and postural expressions of emotion: An interpersonal circumplex approach.

While the recognition of emotional expressions has been extensively studied, the behavioural response to these expressions has not. In the interpersonal circumplex, behaviour is defined in terms of communion and agency. In this study, we examined behavioural responses to both facial and postural expressions of emotion. We presented 101 Romanian students with facial and postural stimuli involving individuals ('targets') expressing happiness, sadness, anger, or fear. Using an interpersonal grid, participants simultaneously indicated how communal (i.e., quarrelsome or agreeable) and agentic (i.e., dominant or submissive) they would be towards people displaying these expressions. Participants were agreeable-dominant towards targets showing happy facial expressions and primarily quarrelsome towards targets with angry or fearful facial expressions. Responses to targets showing sad facial expressions were neutral on both dimensions of interpersonal behaviour. Postural versus facial expressions of happiness and anger elicited similar behavioural responses. Participants responded in a quarrelsome-submissive way to fearful postural expressions and in an agreeable way to sad postural expressions. Behavioural responses to the various facial expressions were largely comparable to those previously observed in Dutch students. Observed differences may be explained from participants' cultural background. Responses to the postural expressions largely matched responses to the facial expressions.

Death Anxiety and Pain Catastrophizing Among Male Inmates With Nonsuicidal Self-Injury Behavior: A Comparative Study.

Most of the studies concerning nonsuicidal self-injury behaviors of persons deprived of liberty were on female participants. This cross-sectional comparative study compared the levels of death anxiety, pain catastrophizing, dissociative experiences, and state-trait anger among male inmates with nonsuicidal self-injury behaviors and noninjuring controls. The results indicated high levels of death anxiety, dissociation, and pain catastrophizing in both groups of participants and the absence of significant differences between the groups. The implications of the results suggest the need of taking into consideration these variables in the behavior management plans used with inmates who engage in self-injurious behavior.

Effects of hypnotic analgesia and virtual reality on the reduction of experimental pain among high and low hypnotizables.

This research compared a no-treatment control condition and 3 experimentally induced pain treatment conditions: (a) virtual reality distraction (VRD), (b) hypnotic analgesia (HA), and (c) HA + VRD in relieving finger-pressure pain. After receiving baseline pain stimulus, each participant received hypnosis or no hypnosis, followed by VRD or no VRD during another pain stimulus. The data analysis indicated that, overall, all 3 treatments were more effective compared to the control group, irrespective of whether it involved hypnotic analgesia, virtual reality distraction, or both (hypnosis and virtual reality). Nevertheless, the participants responded differently to the pain treatment, depending on the hypnotizability level. High hypnotizables reported hypnotic analgesia, but low hypnotizables did not show hypnotic analgesia. VR distraction reduced pain regardless of hypnotizability.

Attachment and suggestion-related phenomena.

This study uses a new classification of suggestion-related phenomena and investigates the relationship between attachment styles and reaction to suggestion. The authors used 3 traditional experimental tasks: a stimulus-misinformation task, an inkblot perception task, and a subjective estimation of a nonexistent difference task. A measure of adult attachment was also taken. Participants with a high attachment insecurity as opposed to those with a low one were less influenced by suggestions in the recall phase of the memory task. Results are discussed within the framework of suggestion models, the dual models of social behavior, and the adult attachment model. Implications of findings are limited to simple suggestion rather than the more complex set of responses related to hypnotizability.

Flexibility in processing visual information: effects of mood and hypnosis.

This quasi-experiment using a real/simulator model investigated differences in cognitive flexibility in high and low hypnotizable participants. Using the variables of hypnotizability (low/high), consciousness (nonhypnotized/hypnotized), mood (happy/sad), and visual-information processing (global/local), reaction times and target detection paradigms of the subjects were evaluated during both nonhypnotic and hypnotic states. Flexibility in cognitive processing was operationalized as the ability to overcome the typical global precedence and answer quickly about the nonprevalent local features. It was observed that the low hypnotizable participants were not influenced in their preference for the global or local dimension by any manipulated variable, whereas the high hypnotizables were more flexible.