Body Image Flexibility: Developments With Derived Relational Responding Emmy Lebleu Emmy Lebleu, Shelley Greene, Gina Quebedeaux, Emmie Hebert Emily K. Sandoz, Ph.D. Louisiana Contextual Science Research Group Louisiana Board of Regents Research Competitiveness Subprogram LEQSF(2011-14)-RD-A-29

Body image is an individual’s experience of his or her own body Body image is an individual’s experience of his or her own body. This includes the thoughts, feelings and perceptions about one’s body. For some this experience is like anything else in the world, with little impact on their behavior, but for others, this experience can be particularly difficult, sometimes even painful, and sometimes body image disturbance can develop Body image disturbance

Traditional behavioral research showed that rats can quickly learn that a red light can signal shock. It’s not the red light that’s aversive, but the red light is related to a worse aversive…the shock. So when that red light is present, the rat becomes solely focused on getting away from it. They aren’t noticing other things because the fear of that shock is what’s the most salient. Something similar happens with humans and their appearance. How many of you have put on a pair of pants, shirt, etc. and it doesn’t fit right. You aren’t noticing hair, eyes, etc. Because what’s most salient is how your clothes are fitting. But it’s funny, no one ever shocked us when our clothes fit too tight, so why is this experience so aversive if we weren’t directly trained? Relational Frame Theory looks at verbal learning processes to explain this.

-RFT is a behavior analytic approach to human language and cognition. -Relational Frame Theory names three properties as distinctive of verbal behaviors: mutual entailment, combinatorial entailment and transformation of function. -From an RFT perspective, relational framing is considered a core process in human language and cognition. -RFT believes that body image is not only learned through direct conditioning processes (shame associated with physical development or praise for maintaining appearance more than for other behaviors, but also through verbal conditioning processes. Combinatorial entailment Mutual entailment Transformation of function

The goal of this study was to demonstrate the relevance of verbal learning processes to body image disturbance.

Body Image Avoidance Questionnaire Participants were recruited from a pool of university undergraduates that volunteered for participation in psychology research in return for course credit. Number of participants was low Participants filled out a packet of questionnaires and then completed a computer matching task. Measures we used: BIAQ, BIQLI, MBSRQ-AS, BICSI, BI-AAQ Body Image Avoidance Questionnaire Body Image Quality of Life Inventory Multidimensional Body-Self Relations Questionnaire Body Image Coping Strategies Inventory Body Image Acceptance and Action Questionnaire

Next they engaged in a computer task that modeled relational responding to body-related stimuli. Participants morphed an image to represent their body image Used a computer program known as the body image assessment scale to alter these images. Then they matched different body images with nonsense syllables (arbitrary stimuli) Went through training, Then was tested on mutual and combinatorial entailment, and if they don’t pass with 85% accuracy, they were recycled back through training Nonsense syllables Matching to sample

Combinatorial Entailment Combinatorial Entailment 82% Mutual Entailment 1st time Combinatorial Entailment 1st time 53% Mutual Entailment 1st or 2nd time 82% First thing we were interested in is whether or not folks would readily learn to relate body image stimuli with arbitrary stimuli - most participants derived the relations quickly and accurately some participants had significant trouble deriving relations Combinatorial Entailment 1st or 2nd time 76%

Body Image Avoidance Preoccupied With Weight Appearance Fixing 2. Who had trouble with Mutual Entailment? ran a series of Logistic regressions to predict failing mutual entailment  Folks who were high on Body Image Avoidance (via BIAQ), who were more preoccupied with weight (via MBSRQ OWPREOC), saw themselves as higher in weight (via MBSRQ-AS WTCLASS), reported more appearance fixing (via BISCI), and were less flexible (via BIAAQ) people who were more rigid tended to have more trouble with mutual entailment Body Image Flexibility

Appearance Fixing Body Image Avoidance Who had trouble with Combinatorial Entailment? ran a series of Logistic regressions to predict failing combinatorial entailment  No significant predictors (more Appearance Fixing and Body image avoidance close, but low n) Read technical guide

Combinatorial Entailment Overall Average % Higher More Appearance Oriented Mutual Entailment Average % Higher BIQLI, Less Avoidance, More PRA, More Body Image Flexibility 4. Looked at self-report data in relation to performance Overall, Average % correct higher if more Appearance Oriented Mutual entailment: Average % higher if higher on BIQLI , less avoidance, more positive rational acceptance, more body image flexibility Combinatorial entailment: Average % higher if lower on Appearance fixing So we ran this study in 2012 but if you haven’t noticed we were lacking what is (according to RFT) one of the fundamental elements of language Combinatorial Entailment Average % Higher Low Appearance Fixing

VS. High Flexibility Low Flexibility The main questionnaire we were concerned with was the BIAAQ. This is a measure of “body Image inflexibility” or how much someone is likely to let their body image influence their behaviors. (example). We found that when we split the transformation of function by high and low body image flexibility both were able to transfer function readily (the exception being low flexibility for the thinner image but it was approaching significance)

Problems with study: Over all our sample size was small on both the first and second wave of the study, however even so, we achieved statistically significant results. What we question though, because the experiment was designed to have the middle image represent self, is why are the results of that image not significant? One thought we currently have is that people may simply not be realating the images to themselves, thereby making the middle sized image into a “neutral” image.

Emmy LeBleu emmy.lebleu@gmail.com emilysandoz@louisiana.edu