The Social Contagion of Binge Eating.

A social psychological account of the acquisition of binge eating, based by analogy on the classic social psychological work "Social Pressures in Informal Groups" is suggested, and tested in two college sororities at two time points. In these sororities, clear evidence of group norms about appropriate binge eating behavior was found; in one sorority, the more one binged, the more popular one was. In the other, popularity was associated with binging the "right" amount--those who binged too much or too little were less popular than those who binged at the mean. Evidence of social pressures to binge eat were found as well. By the end of the academic year, a sorority member's binge eating could be predicted from the binge eating level of her friends (average r =.31). As the groups grew more cohesive, a sorority member's binge eating grew more and more like that of her friends (average r =.35). Other factors related to these women's binge eating levels are discussed. The relative parsimony of a social psychological account of the acquisition of binge eating behavior is shown, and is used to integrate and exp and upon the sociocultural, psychiatric/clinical and epidemiological/risk factors approaches. It is argued that there is no great mystery to how bulimia has become such a serious problem for today's women. Binge eating seems to be an acquired pattern of behavior, modeling perhaps, and is learned much like any other set of behaviors. Like other behaviors, it is under substantial social control.Ph.D.Social psychologyUniversity of Michiganhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/161644/1/8801303.pd