The Relationships Between Body-Related Emotion Intolerance and Restrictive Eating as a Function of Multidimensional Perfectionism.

Abstract

Objective: Emotion intolerance and perfectionism are two maintaining mechanisms to eating disorder symptomology. However, it is unclear how these mechanisms relate to one another. This study explored whether perfectionism is a vulnerability factor for facets of restrictive eating in the context of body-related emotions.

Methods: Female undergraduate students (N = 148) completed questionnaires assessing baseline levels of self-critical perfectionism and personal standards perfectionism. Participants then engaged in an ecological momentary assessment protocol where body-related emotion intolerance and restrictive eating facets (cognitive restraint and behavioral restriction) were assessed over 10 consecutive days. Multilevel modeling and simple slopes analysis were used to explore these moderated relationships. Within-person (Level 1 body-related emotion intolerance) and between-person (Level 2 perfectionism dimensions) relationships were examined.

Results: Based on the analyses, both self-critical and personal standards perfectionism dimensions interacted with body-related emotion intolerance to predict increases in restrictive eating facets.

Conclusion: These findings indicate that personal standards perfectionism, though conceptualized as the less maladaptive dimension of perfectionism, should not be ignored when conceptualizing and intervening with restrictive eating. Recommendations are provided on how to refine treatment targets to be more attuned with situations that elicit body-related emotion intolerance.