Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
1177/1077727X03255900
FAMILY
Jung,
Lennon
AND/CONSUMER
BODY IMAGE
SCIENCES
AND MEDIA
RESEARCH
IMAGES
JOURNAL
ARTICLE
This study examines the effects of womens appearance self-schemas and exposure to attractive
media images on body image, self-esteem, and mood. Womens response to media images was
expected to vary according to an individual difference variable, appearance self-schema, or cognitive representations of organized information about the self in relation to appearance. College
women volunteers (N = 168) were divided into two groups (schematic and aschematic) on the
basis of appearance self-schema; half of each group was exposed to photos of attractive images,
whereas the other half was not exposed to any images before completing measures of body image,
self-esteem, and mood. Women who are schematic on appearance exhibited lower body image,
lower self-esteem, and more negative mood than did those who are aschematic on appearance.
Neither exposure to media images in conjunction with appearance self-schema nor exposure
alone affected response on body image, self-esteem, and mood.
Keywords:
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tendency among women to diet (Mellin, Irwin, & Scully, 1992; Polivy,
Garner, & Garfinkel, 1986; Rosen, 1990).
In contemporary U.S. society, media images reflect cultural standards and emphasize unrealistically thin body shapes and attractive
physical characteristics. Because most women are not granted the
ideal body size and shape from nature, approximating the cultural
ideal of female beauty is difficult (Brownell, 1991). If women consider
appearance important in self-perceptions and perceptions about self
made by others, their body images may be affected by failure to measure up to the cultural ideal. Fallon (1990) has articulated a social-cultural explanation of body image that suggests that social and cultural
factors (e.g., media images) have a powerful influence on the development and maintenance of body image. However, there have been
mixed results for the effects of media images on body image and selfesteem, some possibly due to methodological differences. In Richinss
(1991) study, female college students exhibited lower satisfaction
with their own physical attractiveness when they were exposed to
advertisements containing idealized images. Thornton and Moore
(1993) found similar results for the effects of media images on physical attractiveness and social anxiety but not on self-esteem. On the
other hand, Cusumano and Thompson (1997) found no relationship
between simple exposure and indices of body image, eating dysfunction, and self-esteem.
Although sociocultural messages about womens bodies typically
glamorize an unrealistically slender body, only some women are
adversely affected by those messages. Some women are satisfied with
their bodies even when they deviate from the ideal (Rosen, 1996),
some women are more susceptible to media images than are others
(e.g., depressed women or bulimic women) (Mori & Morey, 1991;
Peterson, 1987), and some women are dissatisfied with their bodies
even when they do approximate the ideal (Hesse-Biber, 1996). Thus,
any explanation of body image must accommodate the heterogeneity
of body image experiences.
A few studies identified self-schema (Markus, 1977) or cognitive
representations of organized information about the self as an individual difference variable that may moderate the relationships between
sociocultural pressure and eating disorders (Vitousek & Hollon, 1990)
and between self-concept and eating disorders (Stein, 1996). Selfschemas are available in a variety of domains such as independence
(Markus, 1977), masculinity (Markus, Smith, & Moreland, 1985), and
body weight (Markus, Hamill, & Sentis, 1987). For example,
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have been found with African American women (Akan & Grilo, 1994;
Thomas, 1989), Asian women (Lee & Lee, 1996), and Asian American
women (Akan & Grilo, 1994).
Because a positive relationship exists between body image and
self-esteem, it is reasonable to expect that a poor body image would be
associated with other indicators of poor psychological health along
with low self-esteem. For example, as low self-esteem has been found
to be related to depressive symptomatology in women (Russo, Green,
& Knight, 1993), it might be expected that women with low scores on
body image variables would exhibit more symptoms of depression
than would women with higher scores on body image variables.
Koenig and Wasserman (1995) recently found that depression was
associated with a poor body image in their sample of male and female
college students. In a sample of 174 college women, Silverstein,
Caceres, Perdue, and Cimarolli (1995) found that depressive
symptomatology was associated with anxiety and poor body image.
These and other studies (Fabian & Thompson, 1989; Thompson &
Psaltis, 1988) seem to suggest relationships among poor body image,
depression, low self-esteem, anxiety, and other measures of negative
mood.
Much of the research on body image has studied either clinical
populations (e.g., Garner & Kearney-Cooke, 1996) or college students
(e.g., Keeton, Cash, & Brown, 1990). Although the importance of
appearance among women decreases somewhat with age (Pliner,
Chaiken, & Flett, 1990), concern with appearance and body image
remains important to women across the life span (Gupta & Schork,
1993; Pliner et al., 1990). Indeed, Pliner et al. (1990) found that the
importance of appearance to women of college age (M = 3.9) and
women aged 60 and older (M = 3.8) are quite similar. Likewise, in a
large national survey, Cash and Henry (1995) found no significant difference between college-age women and other women up to the age
of 70 on one measure of body image (body areas satisfaction).
Media Influences on Body Image
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METHOD
Instrument Development
34
35
Photo slides were used to trigger participants cognitive and emotional vulnerabilities to attractive media images. Slides featured
images of relatively unknown female models scanned from fashion
magazines and catalogs (e.g., Glamour, Marie Claire, Harpers Bazaar).
White models were chosen for this study as they are dominantly featured in the media. As the result of a pilot test of female clothing and
textiles graduate students, 16 photos were selected for use as stimuli.
Photos used received average ratings between 6 and 7 on a 1 to 7 scale
on the dimension of physical attractiveness. The 16 photos consisted
of head-and-torso images and full-length images. All the models in
the photos were judged to be thin by the pilot sample.
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Procedure
37
RESULTS
Participant Characteristics
38
TABLE 1:
Measures
Appearance self-schema
Appearance Schemas
Inventory
Mood
Joy scale
Distress scale
VAS-anxiety
VAS-depression
VAS-anger
Self-esteem
Janis-Field SelfEsteem Scale
Rosenbergs SelfEsteem Scale
Body image
Appearance evaluation
Appearance orientation
VAS-body dissatisfaction
VAS-overall appearance
dissatisfaction
Scale
Mean
14 to 70
37.99
7.97
18
55
.81
3 to 15
8.39 3.03
3 to 15
5.74 2.58
0 to 100 44.43 28.73
0 to 100 25.59 22.65
0 to 100 16.82 20.22
3
3
0
0
0
15
15
100
85
100
.89
.80
36
97
.89
10 to 50
7.13
17
50
.89
7 to 35 23.33 5.17
12 to 60 44.57 8.41
0 to 100 43.01 29.20
10
20
0
35
60
98
.84
.89
92
39.39
39
analysis with BMI as the independent variable and scores on appearance self-schema as the dependent variable, these two variables were
found to be unrelated, F(1, 166) = .001, p > .05. The effects of BMI on the
dependent variables in this study were assessed using multivariate
analysis of variance using the standardized categorization scheme of
BMI: A BMI of less than 20 as underweight (N = 49; 29%), a BMI
between 20 and 25 as normal weight (N = 105; 63%), a BMI of more
than 25 as overweight (N = 14; 8%). The overall effect of BMI on the
dependent variables was not significant, F(11, 156) = 1.22, p > .05.
Thus, results from preliminary analyses revealed that significant
effects on the variables of interest in this study can be attributed neither to students choice of major nor to their BMI.
Multivariate Analysis of Variance
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TABLE 2:
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Dependent Variable
Joy
Distress
Anxiety
Depression
Anger
Body dissatisfaction
Overall appearance
dissatisfaction
Social self-esteem
Global self-esteem
Appearance evaluation
Appearance orientation
Low
Appearance
Schema
(N = 85)
High
Appearance
Schema
(N = 83)
F(1, 166)
8.99
5.01
38.34
16.76
12.76
29.16
(2.97)
(2.15)
(29.14)
(19.47)
(16.92)
(24.37)
7.77
6.49
50.66
34.63
20.96
57.19
(2.97)
(2.78)
(27.09)
(22.21)
(22.46)
(26.95)
7.66**
13.92***
7.90**
29.29***
6.98**
50.76***
25.93
72.98
42.80
25.11
41.18
(20.53)
(9.23)
(5.43)
(4.68)
(8.84)
47.71 (22.76)
64.78 (10.80)
35.90 (7.02)
21.51 (5.04)
48.04 (6.31)
41.16***
28.18***
52.37***
25.59***
31.05***
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TABLE 3:
Multiple Regressions for Appearance Self-Schema and Social and Global Self-Esteem on Measures of Body Image and
Mood
Dependent Variable
Body image
AE
df
R2
Independent Variable
ASS
SSE
GSE
ASS
SSE
GSE
ASS
SSE
GSE
ASS
SSE
GSE
ASS
SSE
GSE
ASS
SSE
GSE
ASS
SSE
GSE
ASS
SSE
GSE
ASS
SSE
GSE
3,164
28.49***
.59
.34
AO
3,164
22.54***
.54
.29
BD
3,164
20.87***
.53
.28
OAD
3,164
25.89***
.57
.32
3,164
10.25***
.40
.16
Distress
3,164
13.95***
.45
.20
Anxiety
3,164
3.56*
.25
.06
Depression
3,164
17.47***
.49
.24
Anger
3,164
4.59**
.28
.08
Mood
Joy
Beta
Partial R
Partial R2
.04
.16
.18
.61
.02
.12
1.10
.15
1.04
.57
.44
.94
.05
.34
.25
.58
.02
.10
.30
.06
.25
.19
.20
.28
.71
3.65***
2.63**
7.34***
.20
1.02
3.77***
.58
2.51*
2.42*
2.08*
2.83*
.06
.27
.20
.50
.02
.08
.28
.05
.19
.19
.16
.22
.0036
.0729
.04
.25
.0004
.0064
.0784
.0025
.0361
.0361
.0256
.0484
.01
.06
.08
.03
.06
.07
.74
.31
.22
.82
.62
.05
.65
.15
.13
.03
.22
.19
.10
.23
.19
.21
.12
.06
.29
.29
.02
.26
.08
.05
.29
2.10*
1.74
1.23
2.23*
1.75
2.26*
1.03
.48
3.52**
2.92**
.14
2.85**
.74
.40
.02
.16
.14
.10
.17
.14
.17
.08
.04
.27
.22
.01
.22
.06
.03
.0004
.0256
.0196
.01
.0289
.0196
.0289
.0064
.0016
.0729
.0484
.0001
.0484
.0036
.0009
NOTE: AE = appearance evaluation; AO = appearance orientation; BD = body dissatisfaction; OAD = overall appearance dissatisfaction; ASS =
appearance self-schema; SSE = social self-esteem, GSE = global self-esteem.
*p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.
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44
45
46
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