The Role of Attention and Memory Biases in Body Dissatisfaction

Cognitive theories emphasise the role of attention and memory biases in the development and maintenance of body dissatisfaction, but there are critical gaps in the literature. Phase One of this thesis investigated the unexplored link between attention and memory for body-related information in a non-clinical sample. Study 1 found that the amount of visual attention allocated to body-related images was positively correlated with recognition memory for those images among both restrained and unrestrained eaters. Interestingly, restrained eaters had better recognition memory for body-related images than did unrestrained eaters regardless of the level of attention, suggesting that restrained eaters may be more efficient than unrestrained eaters at processing body-related information. The relationship between attention and memory remained even when participants were cognitively-distracted (Study 2), but was no longer observed when their visual attention was severely disrupted (Study 3). Study 4 further showed that both restrained and unrestrained eaters’ memory for body-related images was impaired by a schema-specific cognitive load. Overall, then, there is no evidence for the processing efficiency hypothesis.Phase Two investigated the relationship between memory for thin-ideal images and body dissatisfaction, as well as the mediational role of memory in the relationship between attention and body dissatisfaction. Attention was also manipulated by varying the exposure duration of thin-ideal images to demonstrate a causal relationship between attention and memory. Study 5 found that better recognition memory for thin-ideal images was associated with lower body dissatisfaction for both restrained and unrestrained eaters. However, Study 6 showed that, after one week, better recognition memory for thin-ideal images was associated with higher body dissatisfaction for restrained eaters. Memory mediated the relationship between attention to thin-ideal images and body dissatisfaction, both in the short-term (Study 5) and in the long-term (Study 6). Study 7 employed a sample of individuals with eating disorders and provided some tentative indication that the relationship between memory and body dissatisfaction may be generalisable to the clinical population. These findings highlight the important role of memory in influencing women’s body image, and suggest that existing treatments for body image issues may be enhanced if memory is also targeted