INTUITIVE HEURISTIC BINDING INTUITIVE HEURISTIC BINDING PERFECTIONISM, CONTROL AND PERFECTIONISM, CONTROL AND

BODY SHAPE BELIEFSBODY SHAPE BELIEFS

Confalonieri, L.1, 3, 4 , Ruggiero, G.M.1

Alighieri, S.2, Sacco, M.,1 Cattaneo, S.1

1Studi Cognitivi, Milan2 Studi Cognitivi, Modena

3 Department of Human Sciences “Riccardo Massa”, University of Milan Bicocca, Milan

4 Mental Health Department, A.O. “Guido Salvini”, Garbagnate M., Italy

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THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

One of the constraint of human cognitive functioning is

categorization and

assessment of probability that certain token (events, features, exemplars) belong to a type/category

Extentional rational formal reasoning

based on laws of probability: e.g. Conjunction rule:

P (A&B) < P (B)

(Kyburg, 1983; Zadeh, 1978)

Intuitive heuristic reasoningIntuitive heuristic reasoning

violation of the conjunction rule and representativeness heuristic:

“the probability of an event is evaluated by of the degree of correspondence between an instance (token) and a category (type)”; Tversky & Kahneman, 1983

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THEORETICAL FRAMEWORKRepresentativeness Heuristic

To assess the probability that Linda belong to a category (feminist, bank-teller) individuals evaluate the

TIPICALITY OF LINDA’S DESCRIPTION RELATIVE TO DIFFERENT CATEGORIES:

• highest typicality for “feminist” (A)

•“Bank-teller (B) & feminist (A)” HIGHER TYPICALITY than “Bank-teller” (B)

Probability (A&B) “Bank teller & feminist” HEURISTICALLI GREATER THAN P(B) “Bank-teller”

VIOLATION OF CONJUCTION RULE

?“Linda is 31 years old, single, outspoken and very bright. She majored in philosophy. As a student, she was deeplyconcerned with issues of discrimination and social justice, and also participated in anti-nuclear demonstrations”

Bank-teller Teacher Feminist Bookseller Feminist & Bank-teller

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Eating Disorder as illusory compensation to the sense of lack of control and obsession for a self-esteem perceived as perfectionistically inadequate; this illusory compensation gets displaced onto controlling eating and body shape (Fairburn, Shafran, & Cooper, 1999).

Association between perfectionism and eating disorders, mediated by low perception of control and low-self esteem

Mainly verified by correlational studies using questionnaires (Sassaroli, Gallucci, & Ruggiero, 2008; Sassaroli & Ruggiero, 2010)

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

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If correlation studies highlight the association between perfectionism and eating disorders mediated by low

perception of control and low-self esteem,

Do heuristic processes exist which generate cognitive prototypes associating perfectionist

personality and belief of body thinness ?

RESEARCH QUESTION

Which belief about body shape has greater probability to be associated to a

perfectionist personality prototype?

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GOAL and HYPOTHESIS

Goal: Verify the existence of intuitive heuristics binding pathologic perfectionism, beliefs on body shape and control exerted in everyday experiential domain/situations

Hypothesis: We hypothesized that prototypes of perfectionist and controlling personality would be associated with higher probability to body-shape belief of thinness than to overweight body shape belief (heuristic content)

This heuristic content originates from intuitive heuristic cognitive processes more than from formal extensional reasoning

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METHOD

Exploratory study

Sample: n. 21 healthy Caucasian females, mean age = 18 y.o. (s.d.= 0,66 y.o.)

Task: modified version of Kahneman & Tversky (1982) task for the assessment of probability in social perception

• Introduction of personality sketches of pathologic perfectionism (personal high standards, concern over mistakes; Frost et al., 1990)

• Assess the probability of randomized sentences regarding the person described in the sketch:

sentence rationally coherent to the profile: “the person controls to achieve perfectionist standards”

sentence about body-shape of thinness: “the person is thin”

sentence about body-shape of overweight: “the person is overweight”

sentence rationally coherent to profile (controlling) and thinness

sentence rationally coherent to profile (controlling) and overweight

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Sylvia cannot stop to perfectly tidy up her house control: sentence rationally coherent with the profile

Sylvia is overweight overweight body shape

Sylvia is thin thinness body shape

Sylvia is overweight and cannot stop to perfectly tidy up her house control (sentence rationally coherent with the profile) + overweight

Sylvia is thin and cannot stop to perfectly tidy up her house control (sentence rationally coherent with the profile) + thin

Sylvia is 33 y.o. and she is employed in a multinational corporation. She does not tolerate untidiness and dirty at home and in the office; she likes

have everything organized and exactly tidy. Entering in her house it seems to be in a picture of furniture fashion magazine. For Sylvia, being extremely tidy, clean and organized is crucial for being a worthy person.

3 randomized perfectionist personality sketches in cleaning and work domains.

EXAMPLE:

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ENCOURAGING RESULTS

• “Controlling tidiness” considered of highest probability (sig .002): sentence rationally coherent

• “Thin” more probable than “Overweight” (sig .000): intuitive associative heuristic

• “Thin and controlling tidiness” and “Controlling tidiness” are considered similarly probable (sig .737): intuitive heuristic prevailing on conjunction probability rule !

• “Thin” considered more probable than “Overweight and controlling tidiness” (sig .000): even with a rationally coherent cue subjects assess more probable “Thin” than “Overweight and controlling tidiness”

Lower scores = higher probability

3,9

8,15

1,812,48

7,38

0

2

4

6

8

10

Pro

bab

ility

Sylvia thin

Sylvia overw eight

Sylvia controlling tidiness

Sylvia thin and controlling

Sylvia overw eight andcontrolling

P >

P <

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… RESULTS

● “Controlling documents” considered of highest probability (sig .001): sentence rationally coherent

● “Thin” assessed as more probable than “Overweight” BUT NOT STATISTICALLY SIGNIFICANT

Lower scores = higher probability

5,52

6,81

1,90

4,81 5,05

0,00

1,00

2,00

3,00

4,00

5,00

6,00

7,00

8,00

9,00

10,00P

rob

abil

ity

Veronica thin

Veronica overweight

Veronica controllingdocuments

Veronica thin andcontrolling

Veronica overweight andcontrolling

P >

P <

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… RESULTS

•“Controlling article” considered of highest probability (sig .000): sentence rationally coherent

• “Thin” assessed as slightly more probable than “Overweight”

BUT NOT STATISTICALLY SIGNIFICANT

5,766,24

1,89

5,145,57

0,00

1,00

2,00

3,00

4,00

5,00

6,00

7,00

8,00

9,00

10,00P

rob

abil

ity

Jessica thin

Jessica overweight

Jessica controlling thearticle

Jessica thin andcontrolling

Jessica overweight andcontrollingP >

P <

Lower scores = higher probability

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• Associative binding between body-shape belief of thinness and perfectionism in the domain of “cleaning and hygiene” but not in the professional domain: higher salience and typicality of body-shape belief of thinness for the “cleaning perfectionism” than “professional perfectionism”

• Non-clinical young females show intuitive heuristics associating the prototype of perfectionist personality to body-shape beliefs of thinness, in cleaning domain

• Prevalence of intuitive heuristics on extensional rational reasoning: greater attention and salience to the belief of body thinness than to the rational cue coherent to the perfectionist profile (“controlling”): selective attention on thinness that leads to ignore even the rational coherent cue if associated to overweight (“controlling and overweight”)

• Intuitive heuristic prevailing on conjunction probability rule: “Controlling tidiness” and “Thin and controlling tidiness” equally probable even if “Thin and controlling tidiness”: the conjunction can be more representative thanone of its constituents

DISCUSSION: WHAT DO RESULTS TELL US?

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FUTURE DIRECTIONS

Enlargement of non-clinical sample

Enlargement to clinical Eating Disorder sample

Comparison with healthy young males

Moderator effects of “perfectionism” and “perception and desire of control”, measured via MPS (Frost et al., 1990) and ACQ-R (Kyrios, 2003) on the occurrence of heuristics and prototypes associating perfectionism and thinness

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lindaconfalonieri@gmail.com