Due to the seriousness and prevalence of eating disorders, exploring the etiology of these
disorders and identifying specific at-risk populations is crucial. One promising risk factor that
has been linked to the development of eating disorders is competitiveness (Burckle, Ryckman,
Gold, Thornton, & Audesse, 1999; Striegel-Moore, Silberstein, Grunberg, & Rodin, 1990).
Additionally, specific populations of women have been shown to experience higher rates of
eating disorders. Women in sororities are one such group identified with higher rates of
disordered eating than their non-sorority counterparts (Basow, Foran, Bookwala, 2007;
Crandall,1988; Schulken, Pinciaro, Sawyer, Jensen, & Hoban, 1997). Therefore this study will
seek to understand more about how competitiveness may differentially impact this population of
women and contribute to higher rates of eating disorder symptomatology.
This project has several objectives. First, the prevalence of eating disorders, competition
among women, and relational aggression among women in sororities will be addressed. In order
to assess whether women in sororities differ from women who are not in sororities on measures
of eating disorders symptomatology, a one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) will be
conducted. The constructs of competitiveness and relational aggression will be compared amongwomen in sororities and their non-sorority counterparts. A one-way multivariate analysis of
variance (MANOVA) will be conducted to determine whether there are mean differences
between women in sororities and those not on four constructs of competitiveness
(hypercompetitiveness, personal development competitiveness, female competition for status
competitiveness, and female competition for mates competitiveness). Finally, an ANOVA will
be conducted to determine if there are mean differences between women in sororities and women
not in sororities on a measure of relational aggression.
The second focus of this project is to examine if different forms of competitiveness are
better at predicting eating disorders. The constructs of competitiveness that have been
individually demonstrated to predict eating disorder behavior will be included. Multiple
regression will be used to examine how well knowing a participant’s type of competitive attitude
will help explain eating disorder symptomatology. Lastly, because the literature has not yet
explored how relational aggression relates to the development of eating disorders, the final
purpose of this study will be to understand this relationship. In attempting to understand this
relationship, a mediation model will be performed. Participants for this study will include 270
undergraduate women from the Educational Psychology subject pool. / text
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UTEXAS/oai:repositories.lib.utexas.edu:2152/ETD-UT-2010-05-1073 |
| Date | 16 November 2010 |
| Creators | Scaringi, Vanessa |
| Source Sets | University of Texas |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | thesis |
| Format | application/pdf |
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