Emotional processing and bulimic psychopathology: age as a factor among nonclinical women

This study tested the hypothesis that bulimic attitudes are associated with both attentional bias toward and cognitive avoidance of emotion cues among nonclinical women, considering whether the same pattern was found across early adulthood.

Eighty nonclinical women were divided into younger (< or =21 years) and older (> or =22 years) age groups. Each completed the Bulimic Investigatory Test and a Stroop task, designed to determine biases in the processing of negative and positive emotional information.

Among the older women, more bulimic attitudes were associated with a specific attentional bias toward negatively valenced emotional material. In contrast, the younger women with more severe bulimic attitudes showed greater cognitive avoidance of both positive and negative emotion cues.

These findings suggest that women with bulimic attitudes differ with age in their processing of emotional information. Potential implications are considered for clinical work with bulimic women of different ages.