Unit 5 Flashcards
What is body image?
an individual’s perceptions and evaluations of their body -particularly on appearance (how you feel & what you think about it)
What is body image disturbance?
Demonstrably inaccurate perceptions, or discontent with one or more of the body’s observable features
What is the most common way to measure body dissatisfaction?
give a scale & circle what you look like now & then circle what your ideal body looks like -if there’s a difference w/ current & ideal then shows body dissatisfaction
How early does body dissatisfaction show up? What were the findings in this age range?
-6 (or even earlier) -did a study w/ 6-8 yr olds -found girls wanted thinner figure -(the boys wanted a bit of either thinner or larger, maybe muscular shows up later in age?)
What was the government study w/ adolescents?
-asked them how they felt about their body -(didn’t use the scale) -15-25% felt too fat or too thin -disproportionate to whether they were or not -half of the kids who said they were fat would be considered overweight by health metrics
Between Grade 6-10 what are the trends for boys and girls?
boys think they’re too thin by Grade 10 -whereas girls think their too fat (metrics of too thin are higher in grade 8 then go down by grade 10 for the girls)
What to girls ‘desire?’
Thinness
What do boys ‘desire’? How does it change?
Muscular -less consistent over development -at first want thinness then during pre-adolescence & adolescence want muscles
Why is studying body image important?
linked w/ disordered eating (so how you feel (body image) can impact your behaviours (your eating habits))
-also can disrupt relationships, increase risk of steroid use, vanity-driven spending (in women), self-esteem and mental health
What is disordered eating? And what is it linked w/ (or what are the impacts of it?)
-controlling your behaviour in maladaptive ways -linked w. lower life expectancy & health
What are other risk factors for disordered eating?
-self-esteem, genetics, mental health, family & peer dieting, race/ethnicity, family interactions
How are the ideals represented in print media?
- magazines -thin body ideal -studies mainly focused on women as magazines are targeted towards them -avrg mag model is thinner than 98% of N. American women (trending towards average weights)
- convey messages -15% of headlines focus on diet & body image
- contradictory messages -titles, images, recipes, articles
- focus on muscular man for male oriented print media (but don’t have statistics)
How are the ideals presented in screen media?
- overrepresentation of thinness
- underrepresentation of fatness
What is did the study on TV shows and statistics of representation find?
- # of characters underweight vs. overweight
- 5% of pop is underweight -12-30% of characters
- 51% of pop is overweight -13% of characters
What does the content say about fat characters? The messages
Fatness is negative -those characters are treated poorly -more likely to be insulted (often by men), laughed at, fewer romances, fewer friends, having less sex, fewer leadership roles
-ex. in movies, fictional TV, reality TV, sports, advertisements
Do we see body image issues in children screen media?
Yes
What do children’s cartoons and videos say?
thinner characters are more likely to display positive characteristics
- 40% had a character that was concerned about their body/weight
- more likely the woman’s physical attractiveness (& thinness) is associated w/ positive traits
- ex. The Little Mermaid
What do children’s video games say?
- female characters are often depicted as thin w/ very large breast -unrealistically large
- 80% of male characters were hypermuscularized
- (possibly more so in children’s games) -ratio to waist and chest were unrealistic
Are certain body types shown more in the media?
-pretty good evidence suggests yes -& more shown w/ positive traits
What method has most body image research been done?
-experimental
What is a study that tested affect of appearance media? (hint: commercial)
- grade 8-12 teens -experimental -randomly assigned to view appearance-based commercial vs. non (girls saw thin ideal, boys saw muscular) -then did scales on body dissatisfaction (girls) & mood -impacted both
- girls who viewed appearance one had more body dissatisfaction -not for boys
What are the findings of most body image experimental studies?
- find after being exposed to idealized media (commercials, magazines, TV shows) -increase in body dissatisfaction
- less consistent for boys (less of an effect)
So is there an immediate aftermath of being shown idealized bodies in the media? Critique?
- it seems so, yes -can impact body image immediately following
- BUT do the participants know what’s going on? -demand characteristics -performing how they think they’re supposed to
- also very short-term -what’s the long term?
- (not immediate imitation though -can have affects but not like violence where immediately imitate)
What is a body image natural experiment?
- Becker -2002 -Fiji
- had TV but didn’t get Western TV until 1995 -Fijians traditionally prefer larger body type but w. Western TV looked @ teen girls before & after -found 3yrs following -increase in disordered eating & dieting -in interviews 77% mentioned TV’s influence
Why might representation of thinness have long term impacts?
-idea that it’s associated w/ success
What is a body image correlational study?
2nd-4th grade girls
- amount of TV viewing & current body ideal -did NOT find a correlation
- BUT followed up a yr later -found amount of TV predicted future body ideal
Is there a correlation btw amount of media exposure & body image?
- sometimes -but don’t always show associations
- could predict longer-term effects?
Why might the correlation not exist but predict future body ideals?
- media could take time to impact us -or the kids expectations -looking at adult bodies, assume when older will look like that -less about right now, but ideals for later
- could be the content -if watching lots of a certain kind of TV might have diff effects than watching a diff kind (not TV overall but type of TV)
- could depend on what viewer is thinking about -are they thinking about appearance? Reasons for consuming?
What is type of TV content that is particularly linked w. poorer body image?
- soap operas
- had significant effects
What do body image meta-analysis find?
- show small but significant links between media & body dissatisfaction
- smaller effect size than violence
- media input might affect 1-6% of body image but is most likely other factors (media play small role)
- media input can predict 0.5-6% of the variance in body image
What other factors might matter in body image? (specifics of each one)
- individual differences
- gender (most research done w/ girls)
- pre-existing body dissatisfaction?
- race/ethnicity –> more influenced by same race characters -diff impacts btw individuals of diff race & characters of diff races? (see LatinX study)
How is body image effected depending on race? What study? What does this suggest?
- when white women view white characters linked w/ negative body image
- when black women view black characters linked w/ positive body image
- LatinX study (__) & mainstream white TV -linked w/ decreases in body image & black-oriented Tv was linked w/ increases -(often better about diff body types - content diff)
- suggest individual factors (their race) as well as content (& representations) can influence
Summarize Hargreaves & Tiggeman
- idealized media images & adolescent body image (boys & girls) -experimental
- 595 (310 girls, 285 boys) -grade 8-12 teens -2 cause & effect -commercial one (see card 22) -measured body dissatisfaction after -used visual scales (less biased) -how they feel -(before & after viewing)
- social comparison theory
- girls = thin ideal had higher body dissatisfaction (small effect) -more comparison w/ thin one
- boys = no diff/limited if they idealized/appearance one or not -didn’t compare as much (??)
- did depend on individual differences (how appearance concerned - those who were did more comparison)
- increased negative mood and appearance comparison for both boys and girls
- gender & appearance investment are important
- unique: -immediate -+boys
- limitations: -content of stimuli -can’t match tapes -measurement of boys body image
What about an experimental study with just boys?
- adolescent boys Grades 9-10 -commercials -one male-ideal & one figure free -asked questions after (how do you like your body, how much do you want to change it)
- no strong negative effect
- watching the idealized actually made them feel better about their body
Why might there be gender differences in consuming body image media?
(-male gaze?
- how we’re socialized to feel about our bodies)
- how we feel about disclosing our body dissatisfaction?
- accuracy of measurements
- men impacted later? college aged -so physiological differences
- what self-esteem is based on? (vs. appearance)
- diff baseline self-esteem?
- diff media representations
- methodological challenges in assessing body image in boys? Since self-report
What does media lack when study body image & gender?
-representation of non-binary and transgender individuals -not a lot of representation in media either (how might that lack have effects? -ex. celebrities)
What is the overall conclusion for whether media is linked w/ body image?
-it is linked -at least for some individuals
What is Social Comparison Theory?
- we compare ourselves to others (understand ourselves by evaluating others)
- we will also evaluate ourselves relative to those seen in the media
- (but social comparison to peers is much stronger than social comparison to media)
What is Internalization of Thin Ideals?
- society’s message is thin = better & muscular = better
- this message is transmitted through media
- we then internalize is & it becomes part of our thought processes & beliefs
- failure to live up to the standard can lead to greater body dissatisfaction
What is Contingent Self-Worth Theory?
- society’s message is your value is determined by appearance -your worthiness is contingent on your appearance
- transmitted via media
- failure to meet thin/muscular ideals can lead to negative self-worth, which turns to body dissatisfaction
Can comparison, internalization, and idea of self-worth happen at the same time?
yes -can work together
Why might social media & body image be different?
- real peers -or real ppl similar to your peers (mass media too) -you’re presented -can idealize yourself, and everyone puts idealized version of themselves out there
- users are creators as well as recipients
- quantifiable
- bit more permanent
- more public
- curated space
Facebook internal research? Problems?
- leaked -15 teens -interviewed 15 of them -for girls who reported body image issues, 30% said Instagram made it worse -1/3 of them (?)
- problems: correlational (not causation) -maybe those w/ body image issues are drawn to insta for diff reasons
- algorithms
- sample size is really small -can’t generalize
- self-reported data
- probs not randomly selected
- internal, not reviewed -validity
So does the research (correlational) say about poorer body image & social media use?
- yes suggests they are linked -correlational -small relationship
- correlation btw # of social platforms you use & body image
- correlation btw # of time you spend on social media & body image
Study on tween girls and FB?
-compared users & non-users -found non-users had more positive feelings about their bodies
Summarize Fardouly
- social (or appearance) comparison through social media, traditional media, & in person-Ecological Momentary Assessments -reduce bias & in real life
- 146 women -undergraduates -does the amount of comparison & type impact how we feel about our bodies
- 5 days in a row, 5 times a day
- if compared, context, direction, then appearance satisfaction
- factors, mood, diet, exercise
- found most comparisons are in person (77% or 71%??) -traditional media less than social media -most common across all contexts was upward (though non-significant in media) –upward comparison linked w/ less appearance satisfaction -out of media, social media most dissatisfaction (led to less in person appearance satisfaction) -Social Comparison Theory -social media upward had more negative outcomes/mood than in person
- limitations: -demand characteristics -variety of social media platforms -comparison differences -only studied immediate impact (need longitudinal)
Social media - factors?
- different platforms (not all the same, or appearance-based)
- what you do (activities) matter -ex. selfie, viewing/posting pics, seeking negative feedback
- equivalence across gender (impacted both boys & girls) -way they’re presented?
- but can be positive (body positive content, parodies, reality posts - linked w/ more satisfaction)
What method of research is mostly done w/ social media?
- mainly correlational -co could have 3rd variables
- mostly focused on young adults
- (does show a link but depends on type of use)
- social media is constantly changing
Do we need an intervention for media for boys & body image?
-not yet -but suggests yes for girls
Why do people make upward comparisons?
want to improve ourselves -unidirectional drive upward
When were thoughts of dieting and exercise most prevalent?
-after upward comparison on social media (vs. upward in person)
What are the 3 main theories for body image?
1) Social Comparison Theory
2) Thin Ideal (Muscular) Internalization Theory
3) Contingent Self-Worth Theory
What are 2 ways social media is distinct from traditional media?
1) users are creators as well as recipients
2) content comes from peers as well as mass media sources
What are 3 ways social media is distinct from face-to-face interactions?
1) can control how you present yourself
2) permanence and publicness
3) quantifiability: numerical social metrics
In which contexts are making an upward comparison associated w/ less appearance satisfaction? Which context effects the most?
- in all context
- social media has most negative effects
Which social media platforms have more of an impact?
image-based platforms
