Eating Disorders and Intrasexual Competition: Testing an Evolutionary Hypothesis among Young Women

Abstract

The sexual competition hypothesis (SCH) contends that intense female intrasexual competition (ISC) is the ultimate cause of eating disorders. The SCH explains the phenomenon of the pursuit of thinness as an adaptation to ISC in the modern environment. It argues that eating disorders are pathological phenomena that arise from the mismatch between the modern environment and the inherited female adaptations for ISC. The present study has two aims. The first is to examine the relationship between disordered eating behavior (DEB) and ISC in a sample of female undergraduates. The second is to establish whether there is any relationship between disordered eating behavior and life history (LH) strategy. Participants completed a battery of questionnaires examining eating-related attitudes and behaviors, ISC, and LH strategy. A group of 206 female undergraduates were recruited. A structural equation model was constructed to analyze the data. ISC for mates was significantly associated with DEB, as predicted by the SCH. DEB was found to be predicted by fast LH strategy, which was only partially mediated by the SCH. The results of this study are supportive of the SCH and justify research on a clinical sample.

Borderline Personality Disorder

“…Accordingly, a slow LHS would promote females to desire a thinner body than what men perceive sexually most attractive, which in turn, would increase the woman’s value as a long-term mate [ 25 ]. Consequently, slow LHS should be more characteristic of anorexia nervosa (AN) than BN [ 98 ]. Consistent with this hypothesis, BN is associated with earlier sexual maturation and activity; patients with BN also show more externalizing behaviors than patients with AN.…”

Envy Mediates the Link Between Social Comparison and Appearance Enhancement in Women

“…Because men have recurrently selected mates based on these cues (i.e., physical attractiveness), women-more so than men-attempt to advertise and enhance their physical attractiveness to compete against intrasexual rivals (Buss 1988;Meston and Buss 2009). Researchers have identified various methods of appearance enhancement which seem to underlie intrasexual competition among women, including the purchase and use of appearance enhancement products (e.g., cosmetics; Meston and Buss 2009), dieting and weight loss efforts (Abed et al 2012), skin tanning (Hill and Durante 2011), and cosmetic surgery (Arnocky and Piché 2014).…”

Methodologically Sound: Evaluating the Psychometric Approach to the Assessment of Human Life History [Reply to ]

“…While the HKSS has been applied in only 12 studies to date, as noted in the critique, research on the Arizona Life History Battery (and its Short Form, the Mini-K), has produced quite a number of cross-cultural studies in recent years in geographically diverse places such as Chile, Costa Rica, Israel, Mexico, Poland, Singapore, Sweden, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom (e.g., Abed et al, 2012; Buunk and Hoben, 2013; Buunk, Pollet, Klavina, Figueredo, and Dijkstra, 2009; Cabeza de Baca, Figueredo, and Ellis, 2012; Cabeza de Baca, Sotomayor-Peterson, Smith-Castro, and Figueredo, 2014; Egan et al, 2005; Figueredo et al, 2011; Figueredo, Cabeza de Baca, et al, 2013; Figueredo, Tal, McNeill, and Guillén, 2004; Figueredo and Wolf, 2009; Frías-Armenta et al, 2005; Frías-Armenta, Valdez-Ramirez, Nava-Cruz, Figueredo, and Corral-Verdugo, 2010; Gaxiola-Romero and Frías-Armenta, 2008; Jonason, Li, and Czarna, 2011; Sotomayor-Peterson, Cabeza de Baca, Figueredo, and Smith-Castro, 2012; Sotomayor-Peterson, Figueredo, Hendrickson-Christensen, and Taylor, 2012; Tal, Hill, Figueredo, Frías-Armenta, and Corral-Verdugo, 2006; Tifferet, Agrest, Shlomo Benisti, 2011; van der Linden, Figueredo, de Leeuw, Scholte, and Engels, 2012; Woodley of Menie and Madison, 2015). …”