{"id":1751,"date":"2014-11-23T20:39:49","date_gmt":"2014-11-24T01:39:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/?p=1751"},"modified":"2017-09-06T12:05:15","modified_gmt":"2017-09-06T16:05:15","slug":"how-eating-disorders-can-lead-to-bad-decision-making","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/2014\/11\/23\/how-eating-disorders-can-lead-to-bad-decision-making\/","title":{"rendered":"How Eating Disorders Can Lead To Bad Decision Making"},"content":{"rendered":"

What classes do I sign up for? Which restaurant do I want to eat at? How much money is appropriate to spend on a birthday gift? Which is the best highway to take to get home? Whether we realize it or not, decision-making is an essential daily function. We rely on our decision-making abilities to guide us through our actions. But what affects these abilities? Data has shown that individuals with Anorexia Nervosa (AN) and Bulimia Nervosa (BN) have long-term difficulty in decision-making. While serious eating disorders such as AN and BN can have short-term effects such as drastic weight loss and skewed self-image, it is also important to consider the long-term effects that these diseases may have. While some may think that rehabilitation of these diseases mainly involve the process of eating healthy and emotional and mental rehabilitation, rehabilitation, as this article proves, must reach far beyond for these individuals. Differences in decision-making are an important aspect to explore, as treatment in later stages of the disease should be adjusted to these findings. Chan et al.\u2019s study demonstrated the effects of these diseases on what could be life-changing decisions.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Previous studies have already identified differences in decision-making between individuals with AN\/BN and individuals without these disorders in tasks such as the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT). The IGT simulates real-life decision-making in which participants are given four decks of virtual cards. Drawing cards can either produce a win or loss of money, and the goal of the task is to win as much money as possible. The participants don\u2019t know, however, that \u201closs\u201d cards are distributed throughout some of the decks of cards, leading to \u201cgood decks\u201d and \u201cbad decks\u201d. Usually, healthy participants are good are recognizing \u201cgood decks\u201d and \u201cbad decks\u201d in about 50 selections, and could therefore succeed in the task. Those with eating disorders, however, demonstrated to be worse at the IGT than control participants. Individuals with AN and BN would overall base their decisions on the potential value of immediate losses\/gains instead of the final outcome, and further, those with AN were even worse at the IGT than those with BN (Garrido and Subir\u00e1, 2013), and further,<\/p>\n

Chan et al.\u2019s study points out that there hadn\u2019t been any research on the actual differences in the decision-making process between those with AN and those with BN. In order to determine these differences, the researchers used methodology termed cognitive modeling. Cognitive modeling breaks down the decision-making process into different conceptual levels of processing, and produces a good representation of the multi-step processing of decision-making (yay cognitive psychology!). The model that they used to analyze the IGT in this experiment was called Prospect Valence Learning model (PVL).<\/p>\n

So, how does decision-making work? These researchers explained decision-making as a function of individual\u2019s expectation of valence; in other words, individuals may associate positive feelings with one deck of cards and negative feelings with another deck based on whether they\u2019ve won or lost. While the PVL model measures many different parameters, this study focused on learning\/memory, feedback sensitivity, and loss aversion. Learning\/memory is an important measure in determining whether individuals focus on the immediate or the long-term. Loss aversion is a measure that demonstrates whether people would rather avoid losses than gain something. Measuring feedback sensitivity demonstrates whether individuals were more sensitive to rewards or punishments.<\/p>\n

The researchers hypothesized that individuals with AN would be highly sensitive to punishment and would demonstrate impaired learning\/memory functions. This impaired memory would be seen almost like a retroactive interference; individuals with AN would base their decisions on the most recent outcome instead of their previous outcomes. The researchers hypothesized that individuals with BN, however, would show sensitivity to rewards\/gains. In thinking about the characteristics of each disease, these predictions make sense; individuals with BN reward themselves with binge eating, whereas those with AN punish themselves by skipping meals. Moreover, the individuals don\u2019t think about long-term consequences, and instead think about their immediate goals (like weight loss).<\/p>\n

The researchers were partially correct in their hypothesis. Consistent with their predictions, those with AN demonstrated impaired learning\/memory. However, they did not show any significant difference of loss aversion in comparison to the healthy control group. Therefore, it seems that individuals with AN are NOT more sensitive to punishment than any other person, although the researchers attributed this finding to the limitations in testing centers of the experiment. The researchers were also correct in their predictions that individuals with BN would be more sensitive to reward.<\/strong><\/em> Ultimately, this study demonstrated good groundwork for the underlying differences in decision-making between individuals with AN versus BN. While this experiment tested decision-making as a cognitive process, the results can push past these boundaries and can be useful in non-cognitive fields, like rehabilitation for individuals with eating disorders. In discovering this focused information, counselors can perhaps better focus their treatment to tackle these issues in decision-making.<\/p>\n

The important take-home message here is how an unhealthy body image and lack of control over eating disorders affect decision-making in a bad way, as we see in this study. While those suffering eating disorders may think that recovery is much more related to the direct effects of the eating disorder (as this study proves the immediate is often more of a focus for them than the long-term), it becomes clear that the disorder has affected much more than that, reaching cognitive processes that we would seem to think are unrelated.<\/p>\n

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Interested in how other factors can influence your decision-making in a bad way? Read more<\/a> about how staying healthy improves decision-making. This blog post is about individuals that depend on unhealthy substances, like cocaine and methamphetamine, make decisions in similar ways to how those with AN and BN make decisions.<\/p>\n

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References<\/p>\n

Chan, T. W. S., Ahn, W., Bates, J., Busemeyer, J., Guillaume, S., Redgrave, G., Danner, U., Courtet, P. (2014). Differential impairments underlying decision making in anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa: A\u00a0cognitive modeling analysis.\u00a0International Journal of Eating Disorders<\/em>,\u00a047:2<\/em>, 157-167.<\/p>\n

Garrido, I., Subir\u00e1, S. (2013). Decision-making and impulsivity in eating disorder patients. Pyschiatry Research. 207:1-2,<\/em> 107-112.<\/p>\n

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    For the original article, click\u00a0here.<\/a><\/p>\n

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    What classes do I sign up for? Which restaurant do I want to eat at? How much money is appropriate to spend on a birthday gift? Which is the best highway to take to get home? Whether we realize it or not, decision-making is an essential daily function. We rely on our decision-making abilities to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4273,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[130416,80215],"tags":[142813,125381],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1751"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4273"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1751"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1751\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1882,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1751\/revisions\/1882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}