Cognitive Vulnerability to Emotional Disorders

Clinicians (e.g., Pacht, 1984) and researchers (e.g., Flett & Hewitt, 2002) alike have linked perfectionism and psychological maladjustment. The role of perfectionism has been especially underscored in the development and maintenance of eating disorders (see Shafran & Mansell, 2001). For example, Goldner, Cockell, and Srikameswaran (2002) described the quest for the “perfect diet, perfect exercise regime, perfect body shape, or perfect weight” (p. 319) of individuals suffering from eating disorders. Indeed, the very nature of eating disorders-relentlessly striving toward an impossible standard of thinness-is perfectionistic. On the one hand, then, the link between perfectionism and eating disorders makes sense, especially for individuals with anorexia nervosa who are successful, albeit maladaptively, in their relentless pursuit of thinness. But what about individuals suffering from bulimia nervosa, an eating disorder characterized not only by strict dieting and extreme compensatory behaviors (e.g., selfinduced vomiting) to prevent weight gain, but also by recurrent episodes of binge eating? There is a paradox here because the binge eating component of bulimia severely contradicts and undermines bulimic individuals’ goals for bodily perfection. Why would a bulimic individual with highlyKathleen D. Vohs University of British Columbiaperfectionist goals for thinness engage in the very behavior-binge eating-that most profoundly sabotages these goals?