Bulimia nervosa has recently emerged as a major mental health problem. Buli
mics, usually women, suffer episodes of uncontrollable eating following by
purging and/or vomiting behaviours to rid themselves of the food, Previous
work has examined the role of hostility in binge-purge behaviour, and clini
cal observation has noted the presence of strong guilt feelings. Most studi
es of hostility have used the Hostility and Direction of Hostility Question
naire, Very little work has been done on the role of guilt in bulimia, Stud
ies of both guilt and hostility in bulimia were absent. This study used the
Buss-Durkee Inventory (1957) to compare a clinical sample of bulimic women
(n = 17) with nonbulimic female students (n = 20) on guilt and overt and c
overt hostility. As predicted, bulimics scored significantly higher than st
udents on guilt, one-tailed t(35) = 7.17, p<.05, and covert hostility, one-
tailed t(34)= 5.23, p <.05, but did not differ on overt hostility. A distin
ctive pattern of associations between measures of guilt, covert hostility,
and eating behaviours was found for the bulimic women. These results sugges
ted that women with high guilt and covert hostility might be more susceptib
le to bulimia than women who were less guilty or hostile. Longitudinal stud
ies examining these variables throughout the teenage and young adulthood ye
ars would clarify the roles of guilt and covert hostility as possible etiol
ogical factors for bulimia.