The Effect of Disgust Memory Exposure on Self-disgust in Young Women with Negative Body Image

Beck, Nadine (2022) The Effect of Disgust Memory Exposure on Self-disgust in Young Women with Negative Body Image. Master thesis, Psychology.

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Abstract

Self-disgust that is directed towards one’s body plays a role in negative body image. It may lead to avoidance, which might prevent habituation to one’s body and take away the opportunity of gaining new information to correct previous appraisal. Self-disgust induced avoidance might therefore contribute to a resistant perception of one’s body as disgusting. Previous research has utilized exposure to autobiographical memories of trauma, to make them less disgust-eliciting. In this study an exposure intervention was tested, where participants listened repeatedly to autobiographical memories about self-disgust related to their bodies. It was expected that after repeated exposure to these kinds of memories self-disgust and avoidance would decrease and acceptance would increase more than after exposure to the neutral memories. As avoiding the feeling of self-disgust once it is elicited, might prevent habituation, it was expected that those who tend to avoid the experience of disgust more, might show less of a decrease of disgust after exposure to the disgust memory, compared to those with lower avoidance tendencies. To test the exposure intervention, an experimental study was conducted on a sample of 53 young women with high levels of self-disgust. In two exposure sessions they rated self-disgust, avoidance, and acceptance. The results of paired-sample t-tests provided no support for the effectiveness of the intervention. These findings add to the limited understanding of the connection between self-disgust and negative body image. The results could indicate that exposure interventions for self-disgust might be more beneficial in longer or more frequent sessions. Keywords: self-disgust, exposure, negative body image, autobiographical memory

Item Type:	Thesis (Master)
Supervisor name:	Frey, M.I.
Degree programme:	Psychology
Differentiation route:	Clinical Psychology (CP) [Master Psychology]
Date Deposited:	02 Jun 2022 08:44
Last Modified:	02 Jun 2022 08:44
URI:	http://gmwpublic.studenttheses.ub.rug.nl/id/eprint/491

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