In this dissertation I explore what binge-watching is, how it is practiced, and its relationship with contemporary identities of television and viewers. Building on the theoretical frameworks of ambivalent cultural studies, post-structural feminism, and collective memory, I examine binge-watching and binge-viewers through their mediated articulations and ritualized actions. In Chapter 2, I chronicle the history of the terms’ usages in journalism from 1948-2016 and use that data to construct a functional definition of binge-watching. In Chapter 3, I analyze advertised constructions of binge-viewers in the commercial rhetoric of media companies from 2013-2015. In Chapter 4, I explore the rituals of contemporary television viewers through semi-structured interviews to understand how and why people binge-watch. In Chapter 5, I synthesize my findings on the articulations and actions of binge-watching and provided a reflexive narrative of my subject position as a binge-viewer studying binge-watching. I conclude that binge-watching is a techno-cultural phenomenon, which, through its action and articulation, is reshaping the identities of and relationships between television and viewers. / Media & Communication

Background: Individuals with binge eating disorder (BED) experience a loss of control (i.e., poor inhibitory control) during binge eating, where stress is a common antecedent for binge episodes. However, few studies examine acute stress in BED and, to date, psychosocial stress relationships with inhibitory control are unexamined. Purpose: The current study investigated acute psychosocial stress effects on inhibitory control in BED. Additionally, inhibitory control relationships with BED treatment outcome were explored. Methods: Thirty-three individuals with BED were randomized to a stress (n = 17) or no stress condition (n = 16). All completed self-report measures including the Profile of Mood States and the Binge Urge Scale. Following the stressor, individuals completed the Stop-Signal Task (SST), a well-validated measure of inhibitory control. Relationships between post-stress anxiety with inhibitory control and eating pathology were explored. Furthermore, treatment outcome relationships with levels of inhibitory control, and negative urgency (an impulsive personality trait) were explored. Results: In the stress condition, individuals reported increased state anxiety immediately following stress, but experienced a decrease back to baseline levels of anxiety by the end of the SST. Stress resulted in impaired inhibitory control performance on the SST. Binge urges increased across both conditions over time. Measures of inhibitory control and negative urgency did not relate to treatment outcome. Conclusion: This study is novel in directly examining psychosocial stress effects on inhibitory control, which has not been studied in BED. These results show subjective stress effects in BED are short-lived; however, behaviourally, stress has a lingering effect on inhibitory control. Increasing binge urges across the experimental session in the no stress condition suggests a role for generalized anxiety on this impulse. These findings have clinical implications for binge urges as a therapeutic target, and for informing individuals with BED about the implications of stress on their binge eating. / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc)

Yes / Objective: Numerous studies have demonstrated the existence and effect of normative misperceptions on heavy episodic drinking behavior. However, there has been little work on these processes or application of normative-belief interventions outside the U.S. college system. The aim of the current study, therefore, was to investigate heavy episodic drinking and normative misperceptions in a U.K. university setting. Method: An email containing a link to a survey Web site was distributed to all current undergraduate students at the University of Paisley, Scotland. In addition to age and gender questions, the survey contained items on students¿ personal behavior and perception of the level of that behavior in three groups of increasing social distance: close friends, other students of the same age, and other people of the same age in U.K. society in general. Results: Completed surveys from 500 respondents were returned. In keeping with previous research, significant correlations were found between the respondents¿ behavior and the perception of that behavior in others, with beliefs about the most proximal individuals being the most strongly correlated. The majority of respondents were also found to overestimate alcohol consumption in other students. An age effect was noted, in which misperceptions appeared to decrease with age but did not vary between genders. Conclusions: The findings of the study indicate that the normative-belief alcohol consumption processes that have been found on U.S. college campuses also operate in U.K. university settings. This raises the possibility of applying social-norms interventions from the United States to the United Kingdom and potentially elsewhere in the world. Furthermore, the study noted apparent age effects in the degree of misperception, the implications of which are discussed

Research suggests that the associations between femininity, body image and eating disorders are intricate. How these constructs are linked to each other still needs to be determined. The purpose of this study was to gain a deeper understanding of these links, examining the mediational relationship among these constructs. Also, the prediction that bulimia and binge eating disorder symptoms have a similar origin was tested and compared. Some researchers have suggested that the pathways leading to these disorders are equivalent and the main difference between the two is the dietary restriction, while others see them as distinct disorders with different etiology. A total of 355 female college students (ages 18 to 26) completed a set of questionnaires that assessed femininity, feminine gender role stress, body dissatisfaction, bulimia, and binge eating disorder. Results showed that body dissatisfaction mediates the relationship between femininity or feminine gender role stress with bulimia symptoms, as well as the relationship between feminine gender role stress and binge eating disorder symptoms. Results indicate that body dissatisfaction related to femininity or to feminine gender role stress may contribute to higher levels of bulimia symptoms. The findings also suggest that body dissatisfaction related to feminine gender role stress may contribute to higher levels of binge eating disorder symptoms. Results did not support the mediational role of body dissatisfaction between femininity and binge eating disorder. However, the mediational role of feminine gender role stress between femininity and body dissatisfaction was partially supported, suggesting that feminine gender role stress might only be one pathway by which femininity may have an impact on body dissatisfaction. / Master of Science

Although evidence demonstrated efficacy of cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) in adolescents with binge-eating disorder (BED), treatment response is heterogeneous. This study uniquely examined baseline predictors of symptom trajectories in N = 73 adolescents (12–20 years) with an age-adapted diagnosis of BED (i.e., based on objective and subjective binge-eating episodes). Based on evidence from adult BED, dietary restraint, overvaluation of weight/shape, and depressive symptoms were used to predict changes in abstinence from binge eating and eating disorder psychopathology after 4 months of individual, face-to-face CBT using growth models. Longitudinal trajectories of abstinence from objective and subjective binge eating and global eating disorder psychopathology assessed via the Eating Disorder Examination were modeled for five time points (pre- and posttreatment, 6-, 12-, and 24-month follow-up). Beyond significant, positive effects for time, no significant predictors for abstinence from binge eating emerged. In addition to significant decreases in eating disorder psychopathology over time, higher pretreatment dietary restraint and overvaluation of weight/shape significantly predicted greater decreases in eating disorder psychopathology over time. Consistent with research in adult BED, adolescents with higher than lower eating disorder-specific psychopathology especially benefit from CBT indicating that restrained eating and overvaluation of weight/shape may be BED-specific prognostic characteristic across developmental stages. Future predictor studies with an additional focus on potential age-specific predictors, such as family factors, and within-treatment processes may be critical in further evaluating treatment-related symptom trajectories in adolescent BED.

<p dir="ltr">Alcohol is the most frequently used drug among adolescents and is commonly consumed through binge drinking. This pattern involves repeated rapid and heavy consumption of alcohol followed by abstinence. Continued binge drinking can result in increased susceptibility to drink during adulthood and a higher risk of adverse health issues, including cognitive impairment. The prefrontal cortex (PFC) and hippocampus (HIPP) are two of the main regions affected by binge drinking, which may lead to individuals experiencing impairment in cognitive processes such as sensorimotor gating and object recognition memory. However, the mechanisms underlying these processes can be complex. Extensive research needs to be conducted to examine the effects adolescent alcohol consumption can have on cognitive processing. A critical note is using an appropriate model to effectively study this relationship. The purpose of this work was to investigate the association between adolescent binge-like alcohol consumption, cognition-related behaviors, and neuroinflammatory responses in crossed high alcohol-preferring (cHAP) mice, a unique selectively bred mouse model for binge alcohol drinking and its consequences in humans.</p><p dir="ltr">Results showed alcohol history mice increased alcohol intake from adolescence to early adulthood, with females displaying faster escalation. Sensorimotor gating was impaired in the alcohol history group at the 112dB pulse intensity one week after alcohol consumption. Alcohol history male mice exhibited impairment in object recognition memory while females did not. IL-1β and TNF-α in the PFC and HIPP did not vary based on alcohol history or sex. These data provide information on the validity of cHAPs as a model of adolescent to early adulthood binge drinking. Our findings allow a foundation for future research to delineate the effect adolescent binge drinking has on various cognitive processes that are modulated by overlapping brain regions. This will aid in not only educating the public to facilitate more conscious actions but also provide potential therapeutic targets and interventions for those with alcohol use disorder (AUD).</p>

No description available.

Many psychiatric disorders are characterized by difficulties in working towards long-term goals. Effort-based decision-making (EBDM) provides a useful framework for understanding this phenomenon, particularly for parsing motivation into various components, and exploring the underpinnings of cost-benefit computations. Importantly, large changes in arousal, like those introduced by strong emotions and stress, can significantly influence high-order cognitive processes. However, the mechanistic properties underlying associations between emotions and various components of EBDM remain unclear, particularly at psychological, neurological and endocrinological levels. The following experiments were designed to examine the effect of positive and negative emotions on various components of EBDM across psychiatric conditions characterized by motivational and impulse-related deficits. In the first experiment, comparing emotional versus behavioural inhibitory systems in binge eating disorder, inverse relationships between disgust sensitivity, inhibitory control and binge-eating behaviours were found, suggesting unique maintenance functions of cognitive-affective links with emotion regulation on eating attitudes. In the second experiment examining neural correlates of effort- and reward-processing in a cannabis using population, findings indicate fronto-striatal but also posterior cortical processing alterations during prospective signaling of effort and reward signals and during effort-reward information integration. In the final experiment assessing the effects of childhood trauma on acute stress responses and gambling urges in a population of problem gamblers, increased reports of childhood trauma were noted relative to a healthy control group. Childhood trauma subsequently predicted subjective and physiological stress responses, and emotional and physical neglect in childhood was further linked to increased gambling urges. Taken as a whole, these studies suggest that emotions plays a crucial role in moderating various components of EBDM, underscoring the significant impact of emotional states on higher-order cognitive functioning. / Dissertation / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Objective: Analysis of short- and long-term effects of rapid response across three different treatments for binge-eating disorder (BED). Method: In a randomized clinical study comparing interpersonal psychotherapy (IPT), cognitive-behavioral guided self-help (CBTgsh), and behavioral weight loss (BWL) treatment in 205 adults meeting DSM-IV criteria for BED, the predictive value of rapid response, defined as ≥ 70% reduction in binge-eating by week four, was determined for remission from binge-eating and global eating disorder psychopathology at posttreatment, 6-, 12-, 18-, and 24-month follow-up. Results: Rapid responders in CBTgsh, but not in IPT or BWL, showed significantly greater rates of remission from binge-eating than non-rapid responders, which was sustained over the long term. Rapid and non-rapid responders in IPT and rapid responders in CBTgsh showed a greater remission from binge-eating than non-rapid responders in CBTgsh and BWL. Rapid responders in CBTgsh showed greater remission from binge-eating than rapid responders in BWL. Although rapid responders in all treatments had lower global eating disorder psychopathology than non-rapid responders in the short term, rapid responders in CBTgsh and IPT were more improved than those in BWL and non-rapid responders in each treatment. Rapid responders in BWL did not differ from non-rapid responders in CBTgsh and IPT. Conclusions: Rapid response is a treatment-specific positive prognostic indicator of sustained remission from binge-eating in CBTgsh. Regarding an evidence-based stepped care model, IPT, equally efficacious for rapid and non-rapid responders, could be investigated as a second-line treatment in case of non-rapid response to first-line CBTgsh.

Objectives: Binge-eating disorder (BED) is characterized by recurrent binge eating episodes, associated eating disorder and general psychopathology, and commonly occurs in obese individuals. Explicit self-esteem and explicit weight bias have been linked to BED, while little is known about implicit cognitive processes such as implicit self-esteem and implicit weight bias. Methods: Obese participants with BED and an individually matched obese only group (OB) and normal weight control group (CG; each N = 26) were recruited from the community to examine group differences and associations in explicit and implicit self-esteem and weight bias, as well as the impact of implicit cognitive processes on global eating disorder psychopathology. Implicit cognitive processes were assessed using the Implicit Association Test. Results: Significantly lower explicit self-esteem, as well as higher exposure to explicit weight bias, compared to CG and OB was found in the BED group. All groups showed positive implicit self-esteem, however, it was significantly lower in BED when compared to CG. BED and CG demonstrated equally high implicit weight bias whereas OB did not. Explicit and implicit measures were not significantly correlated. Global eating disorder psychopathology was predicted by explicit and implicit self-esteem. Conclusions: The results of the present study add to the importance of implicit self-esteem and implicit weight bias beyond explicit measures in BED, while both were previously shown to be associated with onset and maintenance of BED. In conclusion, implicit cognitive processes should be focused on in interventions for BED to investigate their impact on psychological treatments.