title: Fear- and disgust-related covariation bias and eating disorders symptoms in healthy young women.
abstract: Covariation bias refers to the phenomenon of overestimating the contingency between certain stimuli and negative outcomes, which is considered as a heuristic playing a role in the maintenance of certain types of psychopathology. In the present study, an attempt was made to investigate covariation bias within the context of eating pathology. In a sample of 61 female undergraduates, a priori and a posteriori contingencies were measured between pictures of obese and slim bodies, on the one hand, and fear- or disgust-relevant outcomes, on the other hand. Results indicated that participants in general displayed an a priori and an a posteriori covariation bias reflecting an overestimation of the link between obese bodies and disgust-relevant outcomes. However, this bias was not related to eating disorder symptomatology. Meanwhile, eating pathology was positively associated with a priori covariation biases referring to the associations between obese bodies and fear-relevant outcomes, and between slim bodies and disgust-relevant outcomes. All in all, these findings suggest that covariation bias plays a role in eating pathology.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Psychology, Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands. mayer@fsw.eur.nl
authors.forename: Birgit
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Mayer
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Muris
authors.forename: Maaike
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Wilschut
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001288:Attention; D004644:Emotions; D005239:Fear / Q000523:psychology*; D001068:Feeding and Eating Disorders / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D009765:Obesity / Q000523:psychology; D010698:Phobic Disorders / Q000523:psychology; D014930:Women