Studying the Relationship Between Disordered Eating Behaviors With Personality Traits and Cognitive Emotion Regulation in the Students of Islamic Azad Universities of Tehran City, Iran

Significant behavioral or psychological patterns that are clinically related to people’s weight and eating habits and lead to disability, confusion, or increased risk of disease and death are called disordered eating behaviors. One of the factors that may play a role in eating disorders is personality traits. Personality traits refer to people’s attitudes, emotions, and behaviors. Another important factor that plays an essential role in eating disorders is emotion regulation. Different psychological variables affect disordered eating behaviors. Accordingly, when this effect is determined, it is necessary to determine the various aspects of these psychological factors to identify and predict them to solve eating behavior problems and maintain individual and social health and function. Therefore, the study aimed to investigate the relationship between disordered eating behaviors with personality traits and cognitive emotion regulation.

This study was cross–sectional and analytical correlational. The participants of this study were 438 male and female university students selected by convenience sampling from university centers in Tehran City, Iran. The inclusion criteria were being a student, living in Tehran City, Iran, complete consent of the candidate to participate in the plan, and not using drugs and psychotropic drugs. The exclusion criterion was the incomplete completion of the questionnaires. The study data were collected using Eating Attitudes Test (Garner et al., 1982), NEO Personality Five–Factor Inventory–Short Form (Costa & McCrae, 1989), and Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (Garnefski et al., 2001). The Pearson correlation coefficient and multiple linear regression analysis were used to analyze the data. Data analysis was done in SPSS version 24 at a significance level of <0.05.

The results of the correlation coefficient showed that between personality traits, including neuroticism (r=0.321, p<0.001), extraversion (r=–0.212, p<0.001), openness (r=0.166, p<0.001), agreeableness (r=0.217, p<0.001), and conscientiousness (r=–0.173, p<0.001) were significantly associated with disordered eating behaviors, but between cognitive emotion regulation and disordered eating behaviors there was no significant relationship (r=–0.012, p=0.800). Also, the results of multiple linear regression analysis showed that neurotic personality traits (b=0.275, p<0.001), extraversion (b=–0.260, p<0.001), openness (b=0.192, p=0.003), agreeableness (b=0.149, p<0.001), and conscientiousness (b=–0.101, p=0.05) could significantly predict disordered eating behaviors. The results show that the personality traits of neuroticism, extroversion, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness explain 21% of the variable changes in disordered eating behaviors. A comparison of standardized estimates revealed that the most important predictor of disordered eating behaviors was the neurotic personality trait.

According to the findings, personality traits affect disordered eating behaviors, so studying personality traits in counseling and treatment of disordered eating behaviors is helpful.