Negative Urgency, Not Negative Affect, Mediates the Association Between Sleep Problems and Eating Disorder Symptoms
Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: Objective: There is increasing evidence suggesting that sleep problems may cause alterations ineating behavior (e.g., poor sleep quality is linked to eating disorders (EDs) and ED symptoms).However, little is known about the mechanisms by which sleep problems may increase EDsymptoms. Sleep deprivation has been linked to elevated negative urgency (NU; the tendency toact rashly in response to extreme negative affect [NA]), and NA. Both are consistently linked tohigher ED symptoms and potentially mediate the association between sleep problems and EDsymptoms. This study examined whether NU and NA mediate the relationship between sleepproblems and ED symptoms. Method: Female-identifying introductory psychology students at amidwestern university (n = 119) completed self-report measures of impulsivity (UPPS-P), EDsymptoms (Eating Disorder Diagnostic Scale), and sleep problems (Pittsburgh Sleep QualityIndex), and a task-based measure of NU (total commission errors for negatively-valenceddistractors in the CANTAB Affective Go/No-go Task). Mediation analyses included bias-corrected and accelerated confidence intervals estimated via non-parametric bootstrap. Results:Sleep problems were significantly associated with (Box-Cox-transformed) ED symptoms(B=0.26, p<0.01). Self-reported NU mediated a significant proportion of the association betweenPSQI sleep problems and transformed ED symptoms (Proportion = 61%; p<0.01), but task-basedNU (Proportion = 4%; p=0.73) and NA (Proportion = 23%; p=0.74) did not. Discussion: Poorsleep may increase ED symptoms partly due to increasing trait-like NU, but not via task-basedNU nor NA. Trait-like NU may be an important mechanism linking sleep problems and eatingdisturbances.
Subfield: Clinical Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: gold
OpenAlex ID: W7204598911
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