Eating disorder symptoms and autobiographical memory bias in an analogue sample

Cognitive theories hold that dysfunctional cognitive schemas and associated information-processing biases are involved in the maintenance of psychopathology. In eating disorders (ED), these schemas would consist of self-evaluative representations, in which the importance of controlling eating, shape and weight is overrated. We examined whether ED symptoms are associated with a bias towards ED themes in negative self-evaluative autobiographical memories. Undergraduate females (n = 130) retrieved three memories of situations in which they had felt particularly bad about themselves. Prior to retrieval they had completed either an ED-related priming or a control task. Preliminary results suggest that ED symptoms as well ED priming predicted ED-related autobiographical memory. ED-content did not seem to affect mood or self-evaluation in an important way.