Sensitivity to punishment and low maternal care account for the link between bulimic and social anxiety symptomology.
OBJECTIVE
The current study examined the joint effect of personality and parenting factors on the prediction of bulimia nervosa (BN) and social anxiety disorder (SAD) symptomology in a sample of female college students. The study also tested whether personality and parenting factors might account for the association between BN and SAD symptoms.


METHODS
One-hundred twenty-eight participants completed self-report measures assessing maternal care (MC), maternal overprotection, sensitivity to punishment (SP), sensitivity to reward (SR), and BN and SAD symptomology.


RESULTS
SP, SR, and MC each uniquely predicted BN symptoms, whereas only SP and MC predicted SAD symptoms. High SP interacted with low MC to predict BN and SAD symptoms over the main effects. In addition, SP, MC, and the interaction term SP x MC mediated the association between SAD and BN symptoms.


CONCLUSIONS
High SP and low MC appear to account for the link between BN and SAD symptomology, whereas high SR appears to distinguish the disorders.
Kimbrel
Nathan A
NA
Department of Psychology, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Greensboro, NC 27402-6170, USA. nakimbre@uncg.edu
Cobb
Amanda R
AR
Mitchell
John T
JT
Hundt
Natalie E
NE
Nelson-Gray
Rosemery O
RO
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D002032:Bulimia / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000523:psychology*; D015897:Comorbidity; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D009034:Mother-Child Relations; D016487:Parenting / Q000523:psychology*; D010553:Personality Development; D010555:Personality Inventory / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D010698:Phobic Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000523:psychology*; D011594:Psychometrics; D011678:Punishment; D012307:Risk Factors