Scientific Journal Report + Article
Ashley A.
Adams
1. What is the name of your journal?
Psychology of
Women Quarterly.
The journal seems to be geared to
psychologists with a feminist approach and who concentrate mainly on female
based studies. Its articles would have
an appeal to an audience beyond the world of psychology specifically the
feminist collegiate audience.***
“If only I
were thin like her, maybe I could be happy like her”: The self-implications of
associating a thin female ideal with life success. This is
article is of interest to me because I often find that I compare myself to
thin-ideal media images, and the more I do so the less confident I find myself
that day.
Six pages.
The
major sections are: title, summary, introduction, method, discussion, results,
and references.
The
author states the hypothesis as: “It is hypothesized that when life success
stereotypes about a thin-ideal female target are explicitly challenged or
negated, women should report more positive self-perceptions than when these
life success stereotypes are explicitly or implicitly confirmed.”
When
a negative scenario about an ideally thin woman is presented, the women studied
should feel better about themselves than when presented with a positive
scenario pertaining to the ideally thin woman.
The
study consisted of 126 women in introductory level psychology classes at a
large Midwestern university. The women
are mainly European American (83.3%) aging from 17 to 42 with body mass indexes
ranging from 16 to 60.
Yes.
All participants were presented with one of two photos of ideally thin women
and randomly assigned to read one of four passages regarding the
life-satisfaction of the target in the photo. They were then asked to complete
several different surveys including the life-outcomes questionnaire, the mood
measure, and the state self-esteem measure.
This
would be considered an experiment which uses several surveys to assess its
subjects.
Yes.
The
results show that women who received stereotype-confirming information about
the thin-ideal target reported less optimistic future life outcomes, less
positive moods, and lower appearance and social state self-esteem than did
those women who were presented with stereotype-disconfirming information. These same groups did not, however, report
significant differences on negative life outcomes or performance self-esteem.
The
results suggest that body image may not be all that causes self-dissatisfaction
when women are exposed to thin images.
The social context related to the thin model may also play heavily in
these feeling of dissatisfaction.
Women’s motivation to attain an ideally thin figure may go beyond
physical appearance and pertain just as much to attaining life satisfaction. It is concluded that research based solely on
body-dissatisfaction may not encompass all that makes up our understanding of
physical appearance and that “body-dissatisfaction take place within a social
and cultural context.” (Evans 213)
This
article brought to light a lot about what motivates me to attain the ideal
figure, and why I get so discouraged after spending a few hours flipping
through fashion and celebrity magazines.
The method used for the experiment made sense to me and I found the use
of four different scenarios sensible. I
did think that it was rather simplistic to think that the results of the 3
different surveys could all be affected solely by the scenarios read, rather
than what might be going on the immediate live of the participants. The technical information found in the
results section highlighting the numerical data obtained from the surveys was
somewhat lost on me, as I was not familiar with the formulas used for such data
compilation. I found this frustrating
since I do hold a degree in mathematics and usually find the numbers
fascinating when I understand exactly how they were obtained. I was especially puzzled by the statement
under the heading Body Mass Index in
regards to conducting the analyses of the data “with participants’ BMI scores covaried out.” I
wasn’t sure what this meant exactly, and wasn’t entirely sure that BMI wouldn’t
have played an important role in how the different women interpreted what they
read and saw.
The
article explores the possibility that women not only view ideally thin female
media images with the desire to obtain that image for physical
self-satisfaction but also for obtaining better life satisfaction. The author conducted an experiment with a
large group of college women to determine if the social context surrounding the
target image had an effect on the subject’s life outlook. It was determined that disconfirming the
stereotype that thin-ideal women lead more satisfying lives resulted in higher
self-satisfaction of the subjects.
Results prove that there is more to women’s desire to obtain an ideally
thin physique than appearances alone, but also in overall life
satisfaction. Reading this article
helped to open my eyes to the way that viewing thin-ideal media images affects
my own self-esteem and outlook on life.
I don’t think that my self-satisfaction is ruled by these images, but I
do believe that I spend an inordinate amount of my time thinking about a
thinner prettier me. This article would
probably benefit most women in being able to enlighten them as to how these
images can affect more that just physical self-satisfaction. I believe this article has real cultural
implications regarding the over abundance of unrealistically thin female body
images in the media and the effect it has on the average female’s self
evaluation.
*Please
excuse the formatting of this document.
I had some difficulty with pasting a .PDF file into a word
document. This is my best attempt to
recreate the original formatting of the document. The page numbers were removed in order to
give the article better flow in this word document. The article appeared on pages 209 -214 of the
Psychology of Women Quarterly.
Psychology of Women Quarterly, 27
(2003), 209–214. Blackwell Publishing. Printed in the
Copyright
C_ 2003 Division 35, American Psychological
Association. 0361-6843/03
“IF ONLY I WERE THIN LIKE HER, MAYBE I COULD
BE
HAPPY LIKE HER”: THE SELF-IMPLICATIONS OF
ASSOCIATING A THIN FEMALE IDEAL WITH LIFE
SUCCESS
Peggy Chin Evans
Women often feel dissatisfied with their
appearance after comparing themselves to other females who epitomize the
thin-ideal standard of beauty. The current
study posits that women associate a thin-ideal female body type with positive
life-success, and that it may be this
psychological link that drives feelings of negativity toward the self after
such upward
social comparisons. The results revealed
that women reported more self-dissatisfaction and less optimism about their
possible future life outcomes after exposure
to a thin-ideal female target that ostensibly had a successful life than when
the target ostensibly had an unsuccessful
life.
Research
indicates that while the ideal standard of beauty
for
females commonly portrayed in the media has become
thinner
than it had been in the past (Silverstein,
Perdue,
Peterson, & Kelly, 1986), the average body size
of
adult North American females has increased (Spitzer,
Henderson,
& Zivian, 1999). Not surprisingly, North American
women
often report being dissatisfied with their bodies
and
with their weight in particular, especially after exposure
to
Western media images that display a thin-ideal standard
of
beauty (e.g., Cattarin, Thompson, Thomas, &
Williams,
2000;
Thornton&Moore, 1993). These studies suggest that
many
North American women make upward social comparisons
to
ideal beauty standards in the media to assess
their
level of attractiveness and to evaluate their own appearance.
However,
a number of studies have shown that
upward
social comparisons to ideal standards of beauty can
make
women feel negatively about themselves (Thornton
&
Maurice, 1997, 1999).
A
recent meta-analysis which examined the effects
of
the mass media on female body image revealed that
women
reported feeling significantly worse after exposure
to
thin-ideal media images than after viewing average-sized
or
plus-sized media images (Groesz, Levine, & Murnen,
2002).
Similarly, a study on social comparison, body image,
This
research was conducted in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for
the author’s doctoral degree at
The
author thanks the three anonymous reviewers who
provided
helpful comments on previous drafts of this manuscript.
Address
correspondence and reprint requests to: Peggy Chin
Evans.
E-mail: peggy@chin-evans.com
and
the media showed that women who engaged in social
comparisons
with thin-ideal female media images in
appearance-related
commercials reported substantially
more
anger, anxiety, and depression than women who
saw
a non-appearance related commercial (Cattarin et al.,
2000).
Taken together, these studies suggest that women
are
encouraged by the media to compare themselves to
unrealistic
thin-ideal standards of bodily attractiveness
(Silverstein
et al., 1986), which may then lead to their
body
dissatisfaction (see Myers & Biocca, 1992, for an
alternative
interpretation). Although conventional wisdom
would
suggest that women compare themselves to and
want
to emulate the physiques of thin-ideal standards,
which,
in turn, affects their perceptions of their own
bodies,
this assumption may not be entirely correct.
It
is possible that women strive for the thin-ideal body
type
by associating thinness with positive life success, and
it
may be this life success that women strive to achieve via
having
a thin-ideal body.Astudy by
a
positive relationship between women’s attraction
to
thin female television characters (operationalized as
liking,
feeling
similar to, and wanting to be like the character)
and
a personal desire for thinness. This study suggests that
thinness
alone may not be sufficient to explain why women
are
motivated to emulate the physiques of female television
personalities.
Rather, women’s desire to become more like
the
thin image in terms of the character’s projected lifestyle
and
personality may prompt them to strive for these thinideal
standards.
Women
may feel dissatisfied with themselves after engaging
in
comparisons with thin media ideals because such
standards
induce women to imagine an alternative world
where
they could lead very different lives if their physical
appearance
were altered. Thus, the possible selves
that
women generate for themselves may influence feelings
about
the current self. The concept of possible selves
is
defined as the elements of one’s self-concept that represent
a
sense of what one might become, what one would like
to
become, and what one is afraid of becoming (Markus &
Nurius, 1986). Previous studies
indicate that peoples’ possible
selves
are susceptible to change depending on the current
environment
and may be sensitive to information that
conveys
new or inconsistent “data” about the self (Markus
&
Nurius, 1986). For example, a woman who is exposed
to
a photograph of a thin, attractive female may feel less
attractive
and expect her future possible selves to be more
negative
than before seeing the photograph. Hence, how
an
individual feels about her possible life-outcomes may
depend
on the stimulus to which she is exposed.
The
purpose of the current study is to examine how
life
success stereotypes about thin-ideal females can influence
women’s
self-perceptions after a social comparison to
an
ideal figure. It is hypothesized that when life success
stereotypes
about a thin-ideal female target are explicitly
challenged
or negated, women should report more positive
self-perceptions
than when these life success stereotypes
are
explicitly or implicitly confirmed. The affirmation
of
this hypothesis would suggest that it is more than just
body
dissatisfaction that women experience after exposure
to
thin-media ideals. Rather, it is also the belief that women
with
ideal bodies also have ideal lives, and it may be the ideal
life
that women strive to attain via having a more perfect
body.
METHOD
Participants
Participants
were 126 women recruited from introductorylevel
psychology
classes at a large Midwestern university
in
exchange for course-related credit. Of the participants,
83.3%
were European American, 11.1% were
African
American, 3.2% were Asian American, and the remaining
2.4%
were from other ethnic backgrounds. Participants’
ages
ranged from 17 to 42 (M = 19.5,
SD = 2.6)
and
their body mass index (BMI) ranged from 16.1 to 60.0
(M = 24.3, SD = 5.9; Healthy BMI
scores fall between 18
to
25; Korbonits et al., 1997).
Design
and Procedure
Participants
were told that this study was about the impact
of
the media on health. Upon arriving at the laboratory,
participants
were greeted by a female experimenter who
had
them complete a consent form and fill out a questionnaire
asking
them about their dietary habits, including
how
frequently they skipped meals, ate “junk food,”
and
exercised. They were also asked whether they considered
themselves
to be in “good shape.” In actuality,
participants
completed this measure in order to activate
their
thoughts about their weight and lifestyle. Following
this,
the experimenter weighed the participants in front
of
a mirror and measured their height in order to make
their
own physical appearance more highly salient to them.
Thoughts
about their weight and physical appearance were
activated
in order to increase the likelihood that participants
would
attend to the physical appearance of the thinideal
targets
and the lifestyle information, thereby increasing
the
probability that participants would engage in social
comparisons
with the thin-ideal target model on those two
dimensions.
All
participants viewed one of two photographs of a thin,
attractive,
European American female target (pretested for
attractiveness
by a separate sample). Participants were then
randomly
assigned to one of four conditions. In Condition 1,
participants
read a positive-success passage
about the target,
which
stated that, a nationwide survey of 1,000 thin,
average-weight,
and heavier women showed that “by far,
the
group with the most life-satisfaction was thin women.”
Additionally,
the passage stated that the target in the photograph
was
contacted, and she confirmed that she enjoyed a
happy
life. In Condition 2, participants read an unsuccessful
passage,
which was identical to the first passage but stated,
“by
far, the group with the least amount of life-satisfaction
was
thin women.” The target further confirmed that she
had
an unhappy life. In Condition 3, participants read a
positive-negated passage, which
stated that thin women
“do
not enjoy more happiness than others, are not more
successful
than others, and do not benefit from any special
advantages
over others.” Once again, participants were
told
that the target confirmed that she had an average life
with
normal “ups and downs” just like everybody else. Participants
in
Condition 4 were given no information about
the
target’s lifestyle. However, considerable research has
shown
that thin-ideal females are typically perceived by others
to
enjoy positive life success (e.g., Hebl &
Heatherton,
1998).
After
participants were exposed to the photographs and
lifestyle
passages, they completed the life-outcomes questionnaire.
Participants
then indicated how they felt at the
moment
by completing the mood measure and the state
self-esteem
measure (Heatherton & Polivy, 1991). Participants
were
fully debriefed about the study at the end of
the
lab session. They were told that all of the lifestyle
information
that they received was fabricated and that
“in
general, most people experience some good things
in
their lives and some bad things. There is no group
that
has a particularly happy life based on their physical
appearance.”
Measures
Life outcomes. Based on a modified
version of the possible
selves
questionnaire (Markus & Nurius, 1986), the
life-outcomes
measure asked participants to indicate on a
scale
ranging from 1 (very unlikely to be true of me)
to 9
(very likely to be true of me)
the likelihood that they would
experience
32 positive (e.g., “I may be admired by others,”
“I
may lead an exciting life”) and negative life circumstances
(e.g.,
“I may be pitied by others,” “I may be unhealthy”).
These
items were pilot-tested in an earlier unrelated study
measuring
the likelihood that a variety of situations could be
true
of thin and fat women. Participants’ scores on the items
that
measured positive life-outcomes were averaged to constitute
the
positive life-outcomes variable (alpha = .85) and
participants’
scores on the items that measured negative
life
outcomes were averaged to constitute the negative lifeoutcomes
variable
(alpha = .86).
Mood. General mood after exposure to
stimulus materials
was
measured by asking participants to describe
how
“thinking about the target in the photograph makes
you
feel about yourself right now.” Participants were
asked
to make ten bipolar ratings based on 9-point
scales
ranging from –4 to +4 on the following adjectives:
depressed-elated, stressed-relaxed, dissatisfied-satisfied,
unhappy-happy, disappointed-relieved, insecure-secure,
self-conscious-self-confident,
guilty-innocent,
ashamedproud,
and
negative-positive.
The scores from these ten
adjectives
were then averaged to create the mood variable
(alpha
= .96).
State self-esteem. Possible momentary
changes in selfesteem
after
exposure to stimulus materials were measured
using
the state self-esteem scale (SSES; Heatherton &
Polivy, 1991). This scale is a
20-item questionnaire with
three
components: (a) appearance (6 items, alpha = .85);
(b)
social (7 items, alpha = .83); and (c) performance (7
items,
alpha = .80). The scale asks participants to reflect
on
how they feel about themselves “right now” on items
such
as, “I am pleased with my appearance right now”
(appearance),
“I feel self-conscious” (social), and “I feel
confident
about my abilities” (performance). State selfesteem
is
measured by asking participants to rate themselves
on
a scale ranging from 1 (not at all)
to 5 (extremely)
with
some items reverse scored (Heatherton & Polivy,
1991).
RESULTS
Comparability
of Stimulus Materials
Because
this study used two different photographs of female
models,
a multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was
conducted
to show that the two models did not elicit different
responses
on the dependent variables, F(6,
119) = .62,
ns. Because the two figures in
the photographs showed no
significant
differences across the dependent variables, the
data
for the two photographs depicting the female figures
were
collapsed throughout the rest of the analyses.
Body
Mass Index
Participants’
actual BMI may influence the degree to which
they
feel self-dissatisfied after comparing themselves to a
thin-ideal
female image. Thus, all analyses were conducted
with
participants’ BMI scores covaried out.
Differences
Between Conditions (Stereotype Consistent
vs.
Stereotype Inconsistent)
Two
conditions (Condition 1 and Condition 4) composed
the
stereotype-consistent category, in which Condition
1
explicitly supported the positive life-stereotypes
of
thin females and Condition 4 implicitly supported
the
stereotype. The other two conditions (Condition 2
and
Condition 3) composed the stereotype-inconsistent
category,
in which Condition 2 explicitly challenged the
positive
life-stereotypes of thin females and Condition 3
negated
the stereotype. To explore whether the strength
of
manipulation varied within lifestyle information categories,
univariate analyses of covariance
(ANCOVA) were
conducted
to explore the possibility of differences between
Conditions
1 and 4, as well as Conditions 2 and 3, on the
dependent
variables. There were no differences between
Conditions
1 and 4 or between Conditions 2 and 3. Of
particular
interest to this study, the strength of manipulation
for
both the stereotype-consistent conditions and
stereotype-inconsistent
conditions did not differ on either
the
positive or negative life-outcomes variables. As such,
all
further analyses were conducted weighing Conditions
1
and 4 equivalently (known hereafter as the stereotypeconsistent
conditions),
and Conditions 2 and 3 equivalently
(known
hereafter as the stereotype-inconsistent
conditions).
Before
examining the effects of stereotype condition on
the
individual dependent variables, a multivariate analysis
of
covariance (MANCOVA) was performed to measure the
impact
of stereotype condition on all of the key dependent
variables.
The results revealed a marginally significant
effect
of condition, F(6, 118)=2.06,
p = .06,
which was
sufficient
to warrant univariate tests. Hence, orthogonal
planned
comparisons, weighing the stereotype-consistent
conditions
against the stereotype-inconsistent conditions
(+1
−1 −1
+1), were performed on each of the dependent
variables.
Life
Outcomes
A
planned comparison was conducted to determine
whether
the average ratings of positive life outcomes
differed
across stereotype conditions. As hypothesized,
this
comparison yielded significant results, t(121)
= 1.98,
p <.05 with an effect size of η2
=.03, indicating that participants
in
the stereotype-inconsistent conditions predicted
more
positive life outcomes for themselves than those in the
stereotype-consistent
conditions (see Table 1 for means and
standard
deviations of all dependent variables). However, a
Table 1
Means and Standard
Deviations for Dependent Variables by Condition
Information
Given about Target Model/Condition
Positive Negative Negated No Info.
(n=32) (n=36) (n=30)
(n=28)
Variable M SD M SD M SD M SD
Positive
Life Outcomes
6.36 1.10 6.56 .91 6.74 1.07 6.21 .97
Negative
Life Outcomes 3.07 1.10 2.87 .95 3.22 1.09 3.31 1.06
Mood −.98 1.50 −.10 2.02 −.47 1.61 −1.46 1.72
Appearance
SSES 3.04 .84 3.21
.85
3.21 .66 2.80 .77
Social
SSES
3.68 .84 3.96 .71 3.81 .67 3.54 .90
Performance SSES 3.92 .61 3.90 .74 3.86 .67 3.78 .68
similar
comparison revealed that the negative life outcomes
ratings
did not differ across stereotype conditions, t(121)
= .79, ns.
Mood
Consistent
with the hypothesis, a planned comparison
contrasting
the average mood scores in the stereotypeconsistent