A Cognitive Model of Anorexia Nervosa: Eating Disorders as a Malfunction of Competing Needs

Some contemporary theories of eating disorders are based on research showing that eating disorders have affect regulation mechanisms. Based on new discoveries in neuroscience we hypothesize that hunger may suppress some forms of social pain. In this study we hypothesize that temporary malnutrition should affects people's perception of social pain. To prove that we have conducted an experiment, where we tested people who have not ate for last 14 hours and sated people in two situations. First time, when they play Cyberball game, they were included in the game by other participants, and the second time, when they were ostracized in the game. We have measured their levels of social pain after each play and found out that after the first play one of the parameters, which represents perception of control over social environment, was significantly higher for the group which was hungry, compared to the ones which were sated. Keywords: Hunger, Social Pain, Eating Disorders, Anorexia Nervosa, Pain suppression.