Risk factors and temporal patterns of disordered eating differ in adolescent boys and girls: Testing gender-specific appearance anxiety models.

Adolescent dieting and disordered eating (DE) are risks for clinical eating disorders. In this five-wave longitudinal study, we tested gender-specific models linking early risk factors to temporal patterns of DE, considering appearance anxiety as a mediator. Participants were 384 Australian students (age 10 to 13; 45% boys) who reported their purging and skipping meals, experience with appearance-related teasing, media pressure, and appearance anxiety. Parents reported pubertal maturation and height/weight was measured. Gender differences in temporal patterns of DE were found and predictive models were tested using latent-variable growth curve and path models. Boys' DE was generally stable over time; girls showed stability in purging but an average increase in skipping meals. Peer teasing, media pressure, and pubertal maturation were associated with more elevated initial DE in girls, and pubertal maturation was associated with a steeper increase in DE. For boys, body mass index had a direct positive association with DE. Appearance anxiety was associated with more DE, but there was only one significant indirect effect via anxiety, which was for boys' pubertal maturation. Findings support the dominant role of social interactions and messages, as well as pubertal maturation, for girls' DE and the prominence of physical risk factors for explaining boys' DE.

Improved Perceptions of Emotion Regulation and Reflective Functioning in Parents: Two Additional Positive Outcomes of Parent-Child Interaction Therapy.

The purpose of this study was to test whether Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT), a widely used effective therapy for children's externalizing behaviors and parenting problems, was associated with improvements in parents' emotion regulation and reflective functioning. We also investigated whether these improvements had unique associations with children's improvements in externalizing and internalizing symptoms. Participants were 139 Australian children aged 29 to 83 months and their caregivers; all were referred for child externalizing behavior problems coupled with parenting skill deficits or high parent stress. All data were gathered via a questionnaire completed prior to and after completion of PCIT. Significant improvements were found in parents' self-reported emotion dysregulation and capacity to use cognitive reappraisal for emotion regulation. There was also improvement in parents' self-report of children's symptoms, parenting practices, and reflective functioning in the form of prementalizing, which measured a low capacity to understand the emotional world of the child. Multiple regression showed that improvements in cognitive reappraisal, prementalizing, and negative parenting practices were associated with improvement in children's symptoms. The findings extend the existing evidence for PCIT as an effective parenting intervention, adding parents' perceived emotion regulation and reflective functioning to the list of positive outcomes from PCIT. Improved emotion regulation and reflective functioning, unique from changes in parenting practices, could be mechanisms that help explain why PCIT has been associated with improvements in children's externalizing behaviors.

Self-determination theory and food-related parenting: The Parent Socioemotional Context of Feeding Questionnaire.

There has been wide application of Self-Determination Theory (SDT) to understanding motivation and regulation of eating and weight. Yet, there are no measures of the socioemotional-contextual family conditions in the eating domain, which are identified in SDT and should influence development of eating behavior in young children. Two studies were conducted to develop and validate a measure to assess the SDT socioemotional-contextual dimensions of food-related parenting. These dimensions were derived from extensions of SDT, which argue that autonomy support, warmth, and appropriate structure (as well as low coercion, hostility, and chaos) are the conditions that will fulfill children's psychological needs for autonomy, relatedness and competence, resulting in more intrinsic motivation and better self-regulation of behavior. In the first study, 230 parents completed the food-related parenting items in reference to their 4- to 8-year-old children, and the factor structure and construct and convergent validity of the items were examined. Generally consistent with SDT, factors suggested 4 food-related socioemotional parenting contexts of supportiveness (autonomy support/warmth), coerciveness (coercion/hostility), structure, and chaos. In a second study of 221 parents, a 24-item Parent Socioemotional Context of Feeding Questionnaire (PSCFQ) was confirmed to have a 4-factor structure. In each study, good reliability was found for each subscale. Construct, convergent, and divergent validity were supported by small to moderate correlations with aspects of child feeding (e.g., restriction) and general parenting styles. PSCFQ subscales were not associated with child BMI, family income or parent education. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Intuitive, mindful, emotional, external and regulatory eating behaviours and beliefs: An investigation of the core components.

The aim of this study was to identify the interrelations between, and the core components of, adaptive and maladaptive measures of eating behaviours. Participants were 2018 females (Mage = 23.14 years) who completed measures of intuitive eating, mindful eating, overeating regulation, dietary restraint, emotional eating, external eating, and overeating dysregulation in contexts of leisure and discomfort. Most associations between eating measures were significant, with the largest association between eating for physical rather than emotional reasons (intuitive eating) and emotional eating, and the smallest and nonsignificant associations usually involving the mindful eating subscales. Principle component analysis of the composite scores for all measured eating subscales revealed a 4-component structure. Component 1, labelled attuned eating, reflected positive loadings for eating for physical rather than emotional reasons (intuitive eating); act with awareness, present eating, and non-reactivity (mindful eating); and overeating regulation. Attuned eating also had negative loadings for emotional eating, external eating, and leisure and discomfort overeating dysregulation. Component 2, labelled unrestrained eating, reflected positive loadings for unconditional permission to eat (intuitive eating) and acceptance (mindful eating), but also a negative loading for dietary restraint. Component 3, labelled eating and hunger awareness, had positive loadings for reliance on hunger/satiety cues (intuitive eating) and awareness (mindful eating). Component 4, labelled casual eating attitudes, was represented by positive loadings for non-reactivity and flexibility (mindful eating). These findings highlight the complexity of eating behaviour by revealing that although many adaptive and maladaptive eating concepts appear to tap opposite ends of a continuum of attuned versus disinhibited eating, several other adaptive and maladaptive eating concepts are better described as tapping somewhat unique attitudes, beliefs, motivations, and behaviours regarding food and eating.

Temporal context cues in human fear conditioning: Unreinforced conditional stimuli can segment learning into distinct temporal contexts and drive fear responding.

In associative learning, if stimulus A is presented in the same temporal context as the conditional stimulus (CS) - outcome association (but not in a way that allows an A-CS association to form) it becomes a temporal context cue, acquiring the ability to activate this context and retrieve the CS-outcome association. We examined whether a CS- presented during acquisition or extinction that predicted the absence of the unconditional stimulus (US) could act as a temporal context cue, reducing or enhancing responding, in differential fear conditioning. Two groups received acquisition (CSx-US, CSa-noUS) in phase 1 and extinction (CSx-noUS; CSe-noUS) in phase 2 (AE groups), and two groups received extinction in phase 1 and acquisition in phase 2 (EA groups). After a delay, participants were presented with either CSa (AEa and EAa groups) or CSe (AEe and EAe groups). Responding to CSx was enhanced after presentation of CSa but reduced after presentation of CSe, suggesting that training was segmented into two learning episodes and that the unreinforced CS present during an episode retrieved the CSx-US or CSx-noUS association. These findings suggest that temporal context cues may enhance or reduce fear responding, providing an exciting new avenue for relapse prevention research.