Influence of Body Weight Schematicity on Cognitive Processing Activities

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1995
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Haverford College. Department of Psychology
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Thesis
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Award
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eng
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Haverford users only
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Abstract
The issue of body image is an important area of psychological investigation due to the effects it sometimes has upon individuals, such as the development of eating disorders or extreme preoccupation with size and shape of body. A plethora of research has examined the attitudes and feelings women have toward their own and others' bodies, the accuracy with which they are able to judge the size of their body, and how body image in general influences one's self-esteem and sense of well-being. The present study attempts to re-conceptualize these issues into an integrative framework of a schema and investigate whether women who are schematic for body image display certain cognitive biases. Thirty-two female subjects (16 schematics, 16 aschematics) were given three cognitive tasks designed to assess selective attention abilities, remembering, and the interpretation of ambiguous stimuli. Results indicated that, indeed, relative to aschematics, schematics are more attuned to information relevant to their schema of body image, interpret ambiguous situations in terms of this schema, and remember more schema-relevant information. Practical implications as well as implications for future studies are discussed.
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