Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy Clin. Psychol. Psychother. 15, 86–95 (2008) Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI: 10.1002/cpp.565 Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. The Relation of Anger to Disgust: The Potential Role of Coupled Emotions within Eating Pathology John R. E. Fox 1,2* and Amy Harrison 1 1 Academic Division of Clinical Psychology, University of Manchester, UK 2 Eating Disorders Unit, Russell House, Affinity Healthcare, Cheadle Royal Hospital, Cheshire, UK Objective: difficulties with anger and disgust have been highlighted within females with eating pathology (FEP). However, research has not investigated whether FEP experience greater levels of anger com- pared to controls or how these two emotions may interact in FEP. It was predicted that FEP would show significantly higher levels of state anger and this would also lead to a significant increase in disgust for FEP. Method: the experimental group (n = 25) had significant levels of eating pathology. Data from the State-Trait Anger Expression Inventory-2 and a disgust measure was collected before and after the induction of an angry state. Results: the bulimic group, in comparison to normal controls, demonstrated a significant increase in the state anger scores at time 2 and on the Disgust Sensitivity Scale. Conclu- sion: the findings demonstrate that the emotions of anger and disgust may be ‘coupled’, and disgust may be used to manage the ‘egodys- tonic’ emotion of anger in people with eating pathology. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. * Correspondence to: John R. E. Fox, Academic Division of Clinical Psychology, University of Manchester, 2nd Floor, Zochonis Building, Brunswick Street, Manchester, M13 9PL, UK. E-mail: john.fox@manchester.ac.uk postulated the presence of positive beliefs about eating/bingeing, as bingeing helps the self to dis- sociate from the emotional distress caused by the triggering of beliefs/schemas about the self as ‘not being acceptable’. However, distress is caused by the presence of negative beliefs about eating (e.g., eating will make me fat). This provokes a con- flict within the individual, creating cognitive dis- sonance (Festinger, 1957), which is subsequently reduced by having beliefs that their eating is out of their control. Although this model is a useful start in highlighting the emotional function of bulimic symptomology, it is not clear whether there is dif- ficulty with managing everyday emotions or if an individual with bulimic symptoms actually experi- ences significantly more negative emotions. A drawback of the Cooper model is that it overly focuses on the cognitions surrounding the emotion, and thus it says nothing about which emotions are of key importance in underlying bulimic sympto- mology. There is now a growing body of research that has started to demonstrate that the emotions of anger and disgust may be important. Waller INTRODUCTION Recent research has started to propose that eating disorder symptomology, in particular bulimic symptomology, has the function of helping the self escape from aversive self-awareness and emo- tional distress (Heatherton & Baumeister, 1991). This research has a number of theoretical links with Grilo and Schiffman (1994), who described a model where binge eating was predicted by cogni- tive state. Root, Fallon, and Friedrich (1986) also discussed how binge eating had the function of helping the self to deal with or dissociate from ‘painful’ or negative thoughts and feelings. Build- ing on this empirical basis, Cooper, Wells, and Todd (2004) developed a model of bulimia nervosa that