(PS14-1) Psychological Inflexibility as a Moderator of the Association Between Eating Disorder and Depressive Symptoms in College Men

Studies show that a significant portion of college students (18.4% to 33.6%) experience depressive symptoms (Li et al., 2022; Ramón-Arbués et al., 2020; Wang et al., 2021). Eating disorder (ED) symptoms are associated with depressive symptoms (Ernst et al., 2021), particularly among college students (Murga et al., 2023). There exists a dearth of research related to eating disorder symptoms among men (Brown & Keel, 2023). Eating disorder symptoms are multifaceted, including restraint, eating concern, weight concern, and shape concern (Carter et al., 2001). Psychological inflexibility (i.e., the tendency for one’s behavior to be controlled by their thoughts and feelings, or attempts to avoid them; Levin et al., 2014), is a psychological process implicated in some forms of psychopathology, including eating disorders (Rawal et al., 2010). The current study aimed to examine psychological inflexibility as a moderator of the association between ED and depressive symptoms in college men, hypothesizing that the association would be significant, positive, and increase in effect size at medium and high levels, but not significant at low levels of psychological inflexibility. To test this hypothesis, we administered an online questionnaire to 315 undergraduate men (M_Age=19.7 years, 82% White). We tested the association between ED and depressive symptoms at low (-1SD), medium (mean), and high (+1SD) levels of psychological inflexibility using Mplus 8.10. The four aforementioned ED symptom types were analyzed in the same model. The model accounted for 52.8% of the variance in depressive symptoms. Only the interaction between psychological inflexibility and eating concern symptoms was significant (β=0.39, p< .01). The association between eating concern and depressive symptoms was significant at medium (B=.51, p< .05) and high (B=1.52, p< .01), but not at low (B=-0.50, p=.19) levels of psychological inflexibility. Eating concern symptoms involve feelings of guilt and isolation surrounding eating (Carter et al., 2001), which may relate to and exacerbate feelings of guilt and isolation involved in depression. These findings suggest that higher levels of psychological inflexibility may increase the risk for depressive symptoms in college men who exhibit certain ED symptoms related to guilt and isolation. Further, they highlight psychological inflexibility as a potential intervention point for programs targeting ED-related depressive symptoms.