Sense of agency during and following recovery from anorexia nervosa

Manja M Engel; Vivien Ainley; Manos Tsakiris; H Chris Dijkerman; Anouk Keizer

doi:10.1016/j.concog.2022.103369

Sense of agency during and following recovery from anorexia nervosa

Conscious Cogn. 2022 Aug:103:103369. doi: 10.1016/j.concog.2022.103369. Epub 2022 Jun 16.

Authors

Manja M Engel¹, Vivien Ainley², Manos Tsakiris², H Chris Dijkerman³, Anouk Keizer³

Affiliations

¹ Department of Experimental Psychology, Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences, Utrecht University, The Netherlands. Electronic address: m.m.engel@uu.nl.
² Department of Psychology, Royal Holloway, School of Advanced Study, University of London, United Kingdom.
³ Department of Experimental Psychology, Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences, Utrecht University, The Netherlands.

PMID: 35717717
DOI: 10.1016/j.concog.2022.103369

Abstract

The need to feel in control is central to anorexia nervosa (AN). The sense of control in AN has only been studied through self-report. This study investigated whether implicit sense of control (sense of agency; SoA) differs across AN patients, recovered AN (RAN) patients and healthy controls (HC). Furthermore, we assessed whether state anxiety is influenced by negative emotional states. SoA was measured with the intentional binding task (IB) and state-anxiety levels through a questionnaire. We did not find any evidence of differences in SoA between groups. Furthermore, state anxiety was not a significant predictor of SoA. Further research into SoA in AN should focus on other features of the SoA that are not targeted by the IB task.

Keywords: Anorexia nervosa; Anxiety; Intentional binding; Recovered; Sense of agency.

MeSH terms

Anorexia Nervosa*
Anxiety
Emotions
Humans