A Structural Model of Relations Between Early Maladaptive Schemas, Appearance- Based Rejection Sensitivity, Alexithymia and Eating Disorders in Non-Clinical Sample of Education Faculty Students in Assiut

The recent research sought to determine a structural model of relations between early maladaptive schemas as an independent variable, appearance- based rejection sensitivity as mediators variables and eating disorders as a dependent variable in non-clinical sample of Education Faculty students in Assiut. The basic sample consisted of 250 (70 male, 180 female, Mean age=21.5year, SD= 0.77). The research instruments were: Young Schema Questionnaire-short form (YSQ -SF), Appearance-RS Scale (Short 10-item version) prepared by Park(2007) , The twenty-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale prepared by Bagby etal.(1994), The Eating Pathology Symptoms Inventory prepared by Forbush etal.(2013). The researcher translated these instruments. The results of the research indicated that there were statistically significant positive correlations between research variables. Early maladaptive schemas predicted significantly with other variables. There were statistically significant differences between higher and lower early maladaptive schemas regarding appearance based-rejection sensitivity, Alexithymia and all subscales of alexithymia except externally-oriented thinking and most of subscales of eating pathology symptoms except cognitive restraint, purging and muscle building in favor of higher early maladaptive schemas. There were two suggested structural models to causal relationships between research variables. The good-fit indexes to the two suggested structural models were good and appropriate. The appearance -based rejection sensitivity and alexithymia partially mediated the relationship between early maladaptive schemas and eating disorders. The findings were discussed regarding the theoretical and practical implications and related studies along with suggestions for future research.