Psychosomatic theorizing about obesity has held that overeating by obese individuals represents an attempt to cope with fear, anxiety, or other emotional disturbances. To test this hypothesis, 33 obese and 33 normal weight male college students were subjected to control, interpersonal anxiety, or objective fear treatments. The 5s then completed the Multiple Affect Adjective Check List and took a digit span test. Food consumption was measured by having 5s eat crackers for 15 min. under the guise of making taste discriminations. Although there were indications that the experimental treatments had been successful in arousing anxiety for obese Ss, no significant differences in cracker consumption were found. It was concluded that the results cast considerable doubt upon the tenability of the psychosomatic concept of obesity.

Two scales were constructed to assess self-esteem, conceptualized as reflecting (a) feelings of competence and efficacy, and (b) perceived positive appraisal from significant others. To control for response bias a paired choice format was chosen for the items constructed. A buffer scale designed to measure social assertiveness was also included. Data were collected on three samples of high school boys. The item intercorrelations were subjected to principal component analyses followed by Varimax rotations. In each of the three analyses factors of Confidence, Popularity (Social Approval), and Social Assertiveness emerged. The revised self-esteem scales, each defined by 11 items, have been shown to have acceptable reliability and some concurrent validity based on correlations with the well-known Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale.

A set of bipolar semantic differential type adjective scales were constructed to assess five mood states. The response format chosen serves to control for response bias, reduces the number of items by half, and measures both positive and negative affect. Each of the six bipolar mood states hypothesized was defined by seven five‐point items. Two studies were conducted on samples of high school boys (N = 210); both confirmed the presence of five mood factors: Cheerful‐Depresed, Energetic‐Tired, Good natured‐Grouchy, Confident‐Unsure, and Relaxed‐Anxious. The mood state factors isolated were compared with the scales in the Eight State Questionnaire and Bipolar POMS.

It was hypothesized that the Profile of Mood States (bipolar form) measures two higher-order dimensions: Positive and Negative Affect. It also was conjectured that subjects low in self-esteem report more Negative Affect than those high in self-esteem. POMS and the Self-Attitude Inventory were administered to 102 high school students. A principal component analysis of the 12 half-scale scores of POMS isolated the two affect dimensions postulated. Tests also showed that subjects low in Confidence report significantly greater Negative Affect than subjects high in Confidence. Thus, the Watson-Tellegen theory of affect is supported, and Negative Affect is linked to self-esteem.Self-esteem may be conceptualized as reflecting two dimensions. The first represents the individual's feelings of efficacy and confidence; a sense of power and competence. The second construct represents the individual's perceived positive appraisal from significant others. Scales were constructed to measure these two aspects of self-esteem and incorporated in the Self-Attitude Inventory (Lorr & Wunderlich, 1986). Factor analyses of the items provided evidence that the two scales were relatively independent. A review of the literature reveals that low self-esteem is known to be associated with negative feelings about the self (dejection, anxiety, fatigue). Positive self-esteem, on the other hand, goes along with positive feelings (cheerfulness, energy, composure, enthusiasm).Our aims were to test several hypotheses with regard to self-esteem and associated affect. The first hypothesis was that individuals low in self-esteem report greater negative affect than those high in self-esteem. A correlative hypothesis was that individuals high in self-esteem report greater postive affect than those low in self-esteem. A third hypothesis was that the same two broad affect dimensions (Positive and Negative Affect) isolated by Watson and Tellegen (1985) also will be identified in POMS Bipolar (Lorr & McNair, 1984). Reanalysis by Watson and Tellegen (1985) of a number of studies of self-reported mood indicated that Positive and Negative Affect consistently emerge as the first two Varimax-rotated dimensions in orthogonal factor analyses.Evidence with regard to relations between affect and personality traits, such as selfesteem, is available in several studies. Costa and McCrae (1980) related components