I had a couple of reactions to the study that match pretty well with some of your discussion questions, Eun Ha.
1) I take issue with the fact that authors did not attempt to control for the confounding variables which they clearly showed differed between groups. Perhaps the differences in emotion and eating behavior they found in the BED group were the direct result of being higher in alexithymia and/or overall psychopathology. It's impossible to tell whether BED would add any predictive value over and above these other variables, but the authors could very easily have addressed that in their study.
2) Given the importance of negative interactional emotions predicting both desire to eat and binge eating behavior, it seems that an important clinical implication would be to have a therapeutic focus on interpersonal relationships: interpersonal effectiveness, assertiveness, managing emotions in interpersonal contexts, problem-solving, etc.
5) Other important confounding variables that would have been helpful to assess include impulsiveness, cognitive control, current levels of interpersonal distress, and interpersonal effectiveness.
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention anxiety! Especially since the BED group was significantly higher on social anxiety. It seems like that could play an important role in their negative interactional emotions and thus, their binge eating behavior. It would be interesting to a do an experimental study where patients completed an interpersonal stressor task and then desire to eat was assessed.
I agree! At the same time, we have supporting research that says anxiety plays a role in EDs, so, maybe control it experimentally and see if other variables (that we don't know as much about) are significant above and beyond anxiety (and other variables which roles are supported in the literature).
I had a couple of reactions to the study that match pretty well with some of your discussion questions, Eun Ha.
ReplyDelete1) I take issue with the fact that authors did not attempt to control for the confounding variables which they clearly showed differed between groups. Perhaps the differences in emotion and eating behavior they found in the BED group were the direct result of being higher in alexithymia and/or overall psychopathology. It's impossible to tell whether BED would add any predictive value over and above these other variables, but the authors could very easily have addressed that in their study.
2) Given the importance of negative interactional emotions predicting both desire to eat and binge eating behavior, it seems that an important clinical implication would be to have a therapeutic focus on interpersonal relationships: interpersonal effectiveness, assertiveness, managing emotions in interpersonal contexts, problem-solving, etc.
5) Other important confounding variables that would have been helpful to assess include impulsiveness, cognitive control, current levels of interpersonal distress, and interpersonal effectiveness.
Thanks for your comments! Adding to your list, I think anxiety is a major variable was only briefly addressed in the intro...
DeleteOh yeah, I forgot to mention anxiety! Especially since the BED group was significantly higher on social anxiety. It seems like that could play an important role in their negative interactional emotions and thus, their binge eating behavior. It would be interesting to a do an experimental study where patients completed an interpersonal stressor task and then desire to eat was assessed.
ReplyDeleteI agree! At the same time, we have supporting research that says anxiety plays a role in EDs, so, maybe control it experimentally and see if other variables (that we don't know as much about) are significant above and beyond anxiety (and other variables which roles are supported in the literature).
DeleteHow would you control anxiety experimentally? Like have two groups with differing levels of anxiety do the same experiment?
DeletePerhaps. Sometimes I think researchers rely too much on statistical control which is comparatively (to experimental control) has more limitations.
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