We all experience pressure in several different ways virtually every day of our lives. Perhaps we experience pressure to get good grades or keep our rooms clean. But what if we experience pressure to look a certain way or eat (or not eat) certain foods? For individuals with anorexia nervosa, this pressure can creep into nearly every crevice of their lives. So, where might these pressures originate from? The social learning theory offers a helpful answer to this question.
- First, we will explore the social factors influencing eating behaviours.
- Then we will review the social learning theory and the social learning theory anorexia theories.
- To determine the usefulness of the theory, we will delve into the evaluation of the social learning theory of anorexia.
- We will also look at some other risk factors associated with anorexia nervosa.
- Finally, we will look at the utility of the explanation by looking at the social learning theory of anorexia in psychotherapy.
Social Factors Influencing Eating Habits
Social factors can have a major impact on a person's eating habits. It's hard to deny that many of us care about what other people think about us, especially if they are our family, friends, or peers. So it should come as no surprise that our eating habits can be greatly influenced by social factors such as peer pressure, family dieting, teasing or bullying, and cultural ideas of thinness, fitness, and muscularity.
This article will describe and evaluate the social learning theory of anorexia nervosa. People with anorexia often think they are overweight, even though this is not the case.
Anorexia nervosa is a severe eating disorder that causes a person to maintain a deficient weight by exercising too much or suppressing their diet.
Albert Bandura proposed the social learning theory (SLT) in 1977. The theory assumes environmental and cognitive factors working together cause behaviour.
The SLT explains that behaviour is a result of the following:
Environmental factors via operant and classical conditioning techniques, known as observational learning;
Cognitive factors: before individuals learn a new behaviour, they think about whether they want to learn it.
The SLT explains anorexia as follows:
During childhood, children encode the behaviour of their role models (e.g., celebrities or parents), imitating it.
They do not imitate all behaviour, but if it is reinforced or is the generally accepted opinion of society, they are likely to replicate it.
Society and the media perceive 'skinnier' women and 'muscular' men as more attractive.
An individual may observe and imitate behaviours that may cause the onset of anorexia. Examples include parents criticising their weight, media praising celebrities for weight loss, the person in question being praised for their weight loss, or observing models on restrictive dieting.
As a result, a person can develop a distorted image of themselves and model the behaviour they observed, causing the onset of anorexia nervosa.
Fig. 1 People with anorexia nervosa often have unrealistic expectations.
Social Learning Theory: Anorexia Theories
There are several anorexia theories related to the social learning theory. Let's explore behavioural and cognitive explanations for anorexia.
Behavioural Explanations for Anorexia
As previously stated, the social learning theory considers aspects of the behavioural approach for explaining anorexia nervosa. According to the social learning theory, people can learn anorexia nervosa via associations (principles of classical conditioning). They can then maintain this maladaptive behaviour via reinforcement (principles of operant conditioning).
An example of how classical conditioning explains anorexia in terms of the development of a fear of food is an individual forming an association between eating and psychological distress, causing avoidant behaviour and leading to anorexia. Here are some examples of how operant conditioning may explain anorexia:
Positive reinforcement: words of encouragement, e.g. 'you look good since you have lost weight'.
Negative reinforcement: skipping meals to stop them from feeling guilty for eating.
Vicarious reinforcement: observing someone else losing weight and being praised for it (a desirable outcome) and adjusting their behaviours and weight to achieve the same reward.
Reward: they lose weight if they do not eat.
Punishment: if they eat, they will gain weight.
Keel and Klump (2003) found that the role of media influences and culture affects the rate of anorexia nervosa. The research found anorexia nervosa in all countries, but the more Westernised countries had higher rates of anorexia. However, other factors exist, so we can only say that the Western media plays a role and is not the only determining factor.
Cognitive Explanations for Anorexia
Bandura would also often refer to his theory as the social cognitive approach. The cognitive aspect of the SLT theory explains behaviour in terms of observational learning, a form of cognitive learning.
Cognitive learning is the mental process of acquiring information and knowledge through language and by watching or observing others and events.
One mental process that is vitally important for us to engage in cognitive learning is attention. Without us actively paying attention to a particular behaviour, we would not be able to imitate it later, let alone recall the behaviour we observed.
The cognitive explanation for anorexia, according to the social learning theory, would say that these behaviours are learned through active attention and cognition.
We are also more motivated to pay attention to the behaviour of those that we look up to or respect. This could explain why a person may be more likely to imitate anorexic behaviours if they also observed a parent or caregiver engaging in them.
Evaluation of Social Learning Theory of Anorexia
The strengths of the social learning theory to anorexia are:
Grabe et al. (2008) found that women exposed to media images about the thin-ideal body had body image concerns. SLT approach is more holistic because it takes a multifactorial approach (uses more than one approach to explain phenomena) to explain anorexia, i.e., it does not try to over-simplify complex human behaviours.
This model demonstrates that individuals genetically predisposed to anorexia (more likely to develop it) develop an eating disorder due to psychological pressures from external forces.
However, the weaknesses of the social learning theory to anorexia are:
This model ignores the importance of biological factors leading to the onset of anorexia. For example, Kaye et al. (2015) found that patients with anorexia had high levels of dopamine receptors in the basal ganglia (the brain region involved in reward processing). Therefore, dysfunctional eating behaviour may result from dopamine irregularities in the basal ganglia.
Similarly, Kaye et al. (2005) found that serotonin neuronal systems may create vulnerabilities related to pathological feeding and make some individuals more susceptible to developing eating disorders (alongside environmental stressors).
One problem with this model is that not everyone who has such role models (role models that cause or encourage unhealthy eating behaviours, such as promoting the dieting culture the SLT explains as a possible cause of anorexia) develops anorexia. This idea suggests that the diathesis-stress model may provide a better explanation for anorexia.
Individuals who develop the eating disorder initially have a genetic predisposition (genes that make them more vulnerable to developing illnesses) to anorexia. Exposure to enough psychological pressures from external forces triggers these genes; this concept is the diathesis-stress model.
Risks Factors Associated With Anorexia Nervosa
The social learning theory can only explain part of why a person may develop anorexia nervosa. There are several other risk factors associated with anorexia nervosa. For one, studies have found a genetic component to this eating disorder. Twin studies reveal that anorexia has a heritability of 50 to 60% (Yilmaz et al., 2015).
Another risk factor associated with anorexia is if someone has a perfectionist temperament.
Perfectionist: refers to someone who set's extremely high standards of themselves, expects nothing less than flawlessness and actively engages in critical self-evaluations.
People diagnosed with anorexia nervosa may set standards for themselves that are impossible or unrealistic for them to achieve, causing them to ruminate when they fall short of their or others' expectations.
Fig. 2 People with anorexia nervosa may equate body image with the number on a scale. Other possible risk factors of anorexia nervosa are:
Sex, e.g. females are at higher risk.
Early onset of menarche.
Experiencing transitional stages associated with significant social and physical changes (i.e. adolescence or pregnancy).
Dieting.
Stress.
Obsessive-compulsive traits.
Low self-esteem.
Past trauma, neglect, or abuse.
Social Learning Theory Anorexia in Psychotherapy
It's important to keep in mind the social learning theory when treating anorexia in psychotherapy. One of the most common and effective types of psychotherapy used to treat anorexia is cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT). CBT can effectively dismantle the harmful thinking that a person may have learned due to the social learning theory.
Cognitive-behavioural therapy is a type of therapy that aims to reduce symptoms of mental health conditions by helping the client change their thought patterns and adjust their behaviour.
A therapist using cognitive-behavioural therapy to treat anorexia nervosa will focus on breaking down anorexic thinking that causes distorted beliefs about weight loss, body, and food.
Say that someone observed their mother always going on extreme diets just before the summer. As a result, this leads to distorted views that you can't wear a swimsuit or shorts unless you are 'thin enough', leading to anorexic thinking.
Social Learning Theory Anorexia - Key takeaways
- Anorexia nervosa is a severe eating disorder that causes a person to maintain a deficient weight.
- The behavioural approaches that the SLT considers for explaining anorexia are classical and behavioural conditioning. In contrast, the cognitive aspect explains behaviour in terms of faulty schemas and thought processes that lead people to develop maladaptive behaviour.
- The social learning theory anorexia theories are more holistic because it takes a multifactorial approach to explain anorexia.
- People diagnosed with anorexia nervosa may set standards for themselves that may be impossible or unrealistic for them to achieve, causing them to ruminate when they fall short of their or others' expectations.
- One of the most common and effective types of psychotherapy used to treat anorexia is cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT).
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