Prevalence of Self-Injurious Thoughts and Behaviors in Transgender Individuals With Eating Disorders: A National Study.

PURPOSE: This study examined prevalence of self-injurious thoughts and behaviors (SITBs) in transgender individuals with eating disorders, as compared to cisgender individuals with eating disorders and transgender individuals without eating disorders. METHODS: Data were analyzed from 365,749 individuals (median age 21 years, 71.8% White/Caucasian, 34.9% male, 64.9% female, and 0.2% transgender) who participated in American College Health Association-National College Health Assessment, an annual national assessment of college student health, from 2008 to 2011. RESULTS: Rates of past-year nonsuicidal self-injury, suicidal ideation, and suicide attempts were elevated in transgender participants with eating disorders (74.8%, 75.2%, and 74.8%, respectively), as compared to cisgender participants with eating disorders and transgender participants without eating disorders. Follow-up logistic regression analyses indicated these differences were statistically significant above and beyond the effects of demographic variables and depression. CONCLUSIONS: Results found extremely high rates of SITBs in transgender individuals with eating disorders. This combination of identities, each associated with SITBs, may have a compounding effect.

Non-specific terminology: Moderating shame and guilt in eating disorders.

To examine the effects of terminology on affect, 110 women with eating disorders were randomly assigned to read a manufactured discussion thread with uses of the term "acting out," a thread with clinical terms, or were assigned to a no-reading control. An interaction effect was found in which participants who were treated at a day or inpatient level and were in the "acting out" condition experienced reductions in shame and guilt, while those in the clinical term condition experienced increases in shame and guilt, relative to control participants. The ability of terminology to moderate shame and guilt in this population has implications for clinical practice.

Words on walls: Passive eating disorder education.

This study examined the effect of a short-term passive intervention on nursing students' beliefs about eating disorders (EDs). Before and after a weeklong ED education poster campaign, participants completed questionnaires assessing their attitudes about individuals with EDs. Results showed a reduction in the belief that people with EDs are almost always women, increased attribution to biological and genetic factors, and decreased attribution to society's thin ideal. Personal connection moderated response to the items: [people with EDs] "are putting their lives at risk" and "would not improve with treatment." This intervention shows promise for reducing ED-associated stereotype endorsement among medical professionals.

Transgender Clients' Experiences of Eating Disorder Treatment.

This study examined the treatment experiences of transgender individuals with eating disorders (EDs). Despite this population's elevated risk for EDs, clinicians may be ill equipped to treat these clients. Eighty-four transgender individuals with EDs completed an online questionnaire about their experiences with ED treatment. Inductive thematic analysis produced three themes: role of the body in treatment, negative experiences with clinicians, and recommendations for treatment centers and providers. Participants reported deficits in clinicians'gender competence, resulting in beliefs that ED treatment was ineffective, sometimes harmful. Further attention to this population's needs is crucial, as inadequate care is potentially life threatening.

The nature of social dominance orientation: Theorizing and measuring preferences for intergroup inequality using the new SDO7 scale.

A new conceptualization and measurement of social dominance orientation-individual differences in the preference for group based hierarchy and inequality-is introduced. In contrast to previous measures of social dominance orientation that were designed to be unidimensional, the new measure (SDO7) embeds theoretically grounded subdimensions of SDO-SDO-Dominance (SDO-D) and SDO-Egalitarianism (SDO-E). SDO-D constitutes a preference for systems of group-based dominance in which high status groups forcefully oppress lower status groups. SDO-E constitutes a preference for systems of group-based inequality that are maintained by an interrelated network of subtle hierarchy-enhancing ideologies and social policies. Confirmatory factor and criterion validity analyses confirmed that SDO-D and SDO-E are theoretically distinct and dissociate in terms of the intergroup outcomes they best predict. For the first time, distinct personality and individual difference bases of SDO-D and SDO-E are outlined. We clarify the construct validity of SDO by strictly assessing a preference for dominance hierarchies in general, removing a possible confound relating to support for hierarchy benefitting the ingroup. Consistent with this, results show that among members of a disadvantaged ethnic minority group (African Americans), endorsement of SDO7 is inversely related to ingroup identity. We further demonstrate these effects using nationally representative samples of U.S. Blacks and Whites, documenting the generalizability of these findings. Finally, we introduce and validate a brief 4-item measure of each dimension. This article importantly extends our theoretical understanding of one of the most generative constructs in social psychology, and introduces powerful new tools for its measurement.