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Selective processing of emotional information in body dysmorphic disorder
Ulrike Buhlmann1, Richard J McNally, Sabine Wilhelm
1University of Marburg, Germany. buhlmann@psych.mgh.harvard.edu
Journal of Anxiety Disorders
|September 7, 2002
Summary
Body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) patients show increased distraction by emotional words, particularly those related to appearance concerns. This suggests BDD shares processing vulnerabilities with anxiety disorders.
Area of Science:
- Psychiatry
- Clinical Psychology
- Cognitive Neuroscience
Background:
- Body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) involves distress over perceived appearance flaws.
- BDD shares traits with social phobia and obsessive-compulsive disorder.
- Anxiety disorders often exhibit selective threat processing.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate if Body dysmorphic disorder patients show selective threat processing.
- To compare BDD patients' emotional Stroop task performance with healthy controls.
- To explore the relationship between BDD and anxiety disorder cognitive patterns.
Main Methods:
- Emotional Stroop paradigm utilized to assess selective attention.
- Participants included individuals with Body dysmorphic disorder and healthy controls.
- Word stimuli varied in emotional valence (positive, negative, neutral) and relevance.
Main Results:
- BDD patients showed greater Stroop interference for emotional words (positive and negative) compared to neutral words.
- Interference was observed regardless of word relevance to Body dysmorphic disorder.
- Strongest interference in BDD patients occurred with positive words related to their appearance concerns.
Conclusions:
- Body dysmorphic disorder patients are susceptible to distraction by emotional cues.
- BDD patients exhibit heightened sensitivity to words related to their specific concerns.
- Findings support a link between Body dysmorphic disorder and anxiety disorders like social phobia.