Body Image and Information-Processing Biases on a Modified Stroop Task

Recent research in the area of body image and body-image disturbance has increasingly examined cognitive information-processing models. The focus of the current study was on the processing of appearance-related and nonappearance-related information in appearance-schematic versus appearance-aschematic women. As a modified and extended replication of a study by Labarge, Cash, and Brown (in press), information processing was investigated using a computerized Stroop-type task. Participants were 128 Old Dominion University women who had previously completed the Appearance Schemas Inventory (ASI). They were divided into two groups based on their above median (appearance-schematic) or below-median (appearance-aschematic) ASI scores, Then, at designated times, these women individually completed two Stroop tasks, with an intervening task serving as either an appearance priming condition or a neutral control condition. The first Stroop task always used nonappearance words. The second Stroop task either used appearance words for the experimental group, or a second set of nonappearance words for the control group. After the second Stroop task, participants completed a verbal distractor task, and then a recognition task involving the Stroop words. It was hypothesized that appearance-schematic (versus appearance-aschematic) individuals, particularly those exposed to the appearance prime, would take longer to color-name the words in the appearance-related matrix than in the nonappearance matrix. Further, it was hypothesized that primed appearance-schematic individuals would show faster, more accurate recognition of the appearance than nonappearance words to which they were exposed. Neither hypothesis was supported, although there was a trend in the predicted direction for primed schematics to be slower than the other three groups on Matrix 2 in relation to Matrix I. Possible explanations for these results are discussed. Finally, primed appearance-schematic individuals were expected to "inaccurately recognize" (i.e,, say they were exposed to a word when they really were not) more appearance than nonappearance words. This hypothesis was partially supported in that appearance-schematic individuals (though regardless of priming condition) were found to "inaccurately recognize" more appearance words than nonappearance words, g & .05. This may indicate that appearance-schematic individuals are hypersensitive to appearance relevant cues, and imagine that they receive more appearance-related input than they actually do. Implications for body-image therapy are discussed.