Sivanathan Danushika, Bizumic Boris, Rieger Elizabeth, Huxley Elizabeth
Research School of Psychology, The Australian National University, Acton, ACT, 2601, Australia.
School of Psychology, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, NSW, 2522, Australia.
Eat Weight Disord. 2019 Dec;24(6):1071-1077. doi: 10.1007/s40519-019-00647-2. Epub 2019 Feb 6.
Parental invalidation and narcissism have been proposed to play an important role in understanding the etiology of eating disorders. The current research aimed to address two main gaps in the literature. The first aim was to determine the differential associations of grandiose and vulnerable narcissism with eating disorder pathology. The second aim was to find a common mediator between both maternal and paternal invalidation and eating disorder pathology. It was hypothesized that when controlling for vulnerable narcissism, grandiose narcissism would not predict eating disorder pathology. In addition, it was hypothesized that vulnerable narcissism would be a mediator of the relationship between parental invalidation and eating disorder pathology.
Participants were 352 women aged 18-30 years who were recruited from the general and tertiary student population, and as such constituted a community sample. Participants completed the Invalidating Childhood Environment Scale, Brief-Pathological Narcissism Inventory, Eating Disorder Examination Questionnaire, the Avoidance of Affect Subscale of the Distress Tolerance Scale, and the Emotional Expression as a Sign of Weakness Subscale of the Attitudes Towards Emotional Expression Scale in an online survey.
Results showed that, when controlling for vulnerable narcissism, grandiose narcissism was no longer associated with eating disorder pathology. It was also found that parental invalidation had a positive indirect effect upon eating disorder pathology, via vulnerable narcissism.
The findings indicate that vulnerable narcissism is more strongly associated with eating disorder pathology as opposed to grandiose narcissism and help to further elucidate the mechanisms via which parental invalidation might exert its negative effect on eating disorder pathology.
A cross-sectional survey (Level V).
父母的忽视和自恋被认为在理解饮食失调的病因方面起着重要作用。当前的研究旨在填补文献中的两个主要空白。第一个目标是确定夸大性自恋和脆弱性自恋与饮食失调病理之间的差异关联。第二个目标是找到母亲和父亲的忽视与饮食失调病理之间的共同中介因素。研究假设，在控制脆弱性自恋的情况下，夸大性自恋不会预测饮食失调病理。此外，研究假设脆弱性自恋将是父母忽视与饮食失调病理之间关系的中介因素。
参与者为352名年龄在18至30岁之间的女性，她们是从普通大学生和高等院校学生群体中招募的，因此构成了一个社区样本。参与者在一项在线调查中完成了《忽视性童年环境量表》《简短病理性自恋量表》《饮食失调检查问卷》《痛苦耐受量表的情感回避分量表》以及《情感表达态度量表的情感表达即软弱分量表》。
结果表明，在控制脆弱性自恋的情况下，夸大性自恋不再与饮食失调病理相关。研究还发现，父母的忽视通过脆弱性自恋对饮食失调病理产生了积极的间接影响。
研究结果表明，与夸大性自恋相比，脆弱性自恋与饮食失调病理的关联更为紧密，并有助于进一步阐明父母忽视可能对饮食失调病理产生负面影响的机制。
横断面调查（V级）。
