The role of acquired capability as a differentially-specific risk factor for disordered eating and problematic alcohol use in female college students: A measure development and validation study
By Christa Labouliere, Ph.D.
Doctoral Dissertation defended in 2013
Project Overview
Traditional college students are members of an age bracket noted for high levels
of risky behavior, and research has shown that certain risky behaviors, such as disordered
eating and problematic alcohol use, are particularly common among undergraduates. It is
well established that certain events in the learning history predispose vulnerable persons
to engage in maladaptive risky behaviors. What is less clear is why some persons facing
these events go on to develop maladaptive behavior while others do not, or why people
facing similar events develop different varieties of maladaptive behaviors. Current
research has focused extensively on risk factors that are common across dysregulated
behaviors (e.g., affect dysregulation, impulsivity, etc.); however, few studies have yet
explored which risk factors differentiate risk for different maladaptive behaviors. Likely,
certain mediating factors, such as beliefs about one's capability to tolerate the aversive
aspects of a specific behavior, may differentiate groups at-risk for engaging in different
maladaptive behaviors. Being able to determine specific risk factors for maladaptive
behaviors would have obvious predictive value for targeted prevention and intervention
efforts. Nevertheless, current research in the fields of risky behavior has relatively
neglected the exploration of these specific risk factors, leading to theoretical,
measurement, and application gaps in the literatures surrounding these problematic areas.
This study aspires to address some of those gaps, by extending the construct of
acquired capability (i.e., the role of exposure and habituation to certain events in the
learning history that predict the development of the ability to engage in risky behaviors
despite emotional or physical discomfort) from the field of self-harm to other risky
behaviors. Acquired capability as a differentially-specific risk factor has been widely
validated in the field of self-harm, but has been relatively unexplored in the fields of
disordered eating and problematic alcohol. As such, this study aims to develop a measure
of acquired capability for disordered eating and problematic alcohol use, then validate
this measure by exploring associations between acquired capability-enhancing events in
the learning history, acquired capability-related beliefs, and actual risk behaviors, over
and above the contributions of other common risk factors (e.g., affect dysregulation,
sensation seeking) in a sample of college undergraduates.
