Introducing a New Prevention of True Self and Cognitive Dissonance Intervention to Improve Help-Seeking for Female College Students with a Risk of an Eating Disorder

• Main Author: Hance, Margaret A.
• Format: Others
• Language: English
• Published: Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University 2019
• Subjects: eating disorder; true self; cognitive dissonance intervention; CDI; help-seeking; eating disorder risk; Psychology
• Online Access: https://dc.etsu.edu/etd/3555; https://dc.etsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=5007&context=etd

In the United States, eating disorders affect approximately 20 million women annually (National Institutes of Health, 2011). With such a high prevalence, ensuring help-seeking in individuals with eating disorders is critical. A previously-supported eating disorder prevention approach includes cognitive dissonance intervention (CDI). CDI’s purpose is to change a person’s behavior to reflect their attitude or cognition. While true self intervention has not been with previously been applied to eating disorders, it has been efficacious in improving psychological risk factors associated with eating disorder risk. The current study combined true self and CDI to test a more holistic prevention tool (i.e. combining psychological and cognitive approaches to prevention). Specifically, the current study compared the combination prevention to true self intervention only, CDI only, and a control condition to examine outcomes of body satisfaction, eating disorder pathology, psychological outcomes, and help-seeking intentions. Overall, evidence did not support the preventions’ combined prevention superiority to control within the entire sample. When exploring individuals at risk of an eating disorder, however, CDI was significantly better than true self in reducing binge episodes and self-esteem. Furthermore, the combination prevention was significantly better than true self at increasing self-esteem. The following results warrant more research exploring other potential preventions to increase positive psychological outcomes. Moreover, future research should explore more options for increasing help-seeking intentions.