Research
Mousa J
Media Effects on Women’s Body Esteem: Social and Individual Difference Factors
EAARON H E N D E R S O N - ~ ~ DONNA HENDERSON-KING Loyola University of Chicago University of Michigan
This study examined individual difference and social factors in moderating the effects of media images on women’s body satisfaction. Participants heard a conversation wherein 2 people either were judgmental about a mutual friend’s weight gain or discussed their friend’s recent move. Participants then viewed slides which were either neutral or depicted “ideal” images of women. Results underscored the importance of individual differences. When exposed to ideal images, thinner women more positively evaluated their sexual attractiveness, while heavier women reported more negative self-evaluations. Compared to low self-monitors, high self-monitors who were exposed to ideal images were more positive about their physical condition. The findings demonstrate that media images do not similarly affect all women’s body esteem.
Increased attention is currently being devoted to the pressures faced by women to concern themselves with physical attractiveness (e.g., Connor- Greene, 1988; Faludi, 199 1; Itzin, 1986; Rodin, Silberstein, & Striegel-Moore, 1984; Wolf, 1991). In particular, it has been argued that the media, particularly beauty and fashion advertisements, provide images of an unattainable “ideal,” and that these images may have a cumulative effect on women’s satisfaction with their appearance (Kilbourne, 1987). Presumably, the more pervasive is media imagery, the more women feel that they must meet these unattainable standards and the less positive they feel about their bodies. However, the degree to which women are susceptible to media messages about physical attractiveness may depend on other factors in addition to media exposure. This research considers several factors which may moderate the relationship be- tween media exposure and women’s body esteem.
Pressures for Physical Attractiveness
Although women have long been evaluated in terms of their appearance (Freedman, 1986), contemporary North American society has witnessed
‘Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Eaaron Henderson-King, Department of Psychology, Loyola University of Chicago, 6525 N. Sheridan Road, Chicago, IL 60626.
Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 1997, 27, 5 , pp. 399-417. Copyright 0 1997 by V. H. Winston & Son, Inc. All rights reserved.
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increasing pressure on women to aspire to ideal images of beauty (Wolf, 1991). The exact nature of the ideal is subject to change as fashion trends dictate; however, a focus on weight and body shape, with an increasing trend toward slenderness has characterized the contemporary ideal (Silverstein, Perdue, Peterson, & Kelly, 1986). Women’s concern with physical attractiveness and the tendency to feel dissatisfied with their bodies has been well documented (Cash, Winstead, & Janda, 1986; Franzoi & Herzog, 1987; Franzoi, Kessenich, & Sugrue, 1989; Jackson, Sullivan, & Rostker, 1988; Mintz & Betz, 1986; Thomas, 1989). As would be expected, given the current ideal of slenderness, many North American women are particularly concerned and dissatisfied with their weight (Connor-Greene, 1988; Thomas, 1989; Thomas & James, 1988). Women generally express a desire to lose weight, even when they are not overweight and do not perceive themselves to be overweight (Connor-Greene, 1988; Silberstein, Striegel-Moore, Timko, & Rodin, 1988).
Media depictions of women both reflect and reinforce the importance of physical appearance in women’s lives. For example, Archer, Iritani, Kimes, and Barrios (1983) found evidence of pervasive face-ism in representations of men. In both media photographs and artwork, facial prominence was greater for men, while depictions of women included a relatively larger proportion of the body. The authors argue that this difference in the representation of females and males may contribute to the characterization of uniquely male attributes as more cerebral, while corporal attributes such as weight, physique, and attrac- tiveness may be seen as the unique qualities of women.
Women’s bodies are frequently used in advertisements to sell a variety of products to both male and female audiences. When the target audience is male, women’s bodies are often used as a prop for products which are in no way related to the female body. For a female target audience, the female body is often used to elicit fears and insecurities in the viewer. Advertising in both television commercials (Adams & Crossman, 1978; Garner, Garfinkel, & Olmstead, 1983) and women’s magazines (Gamer et al., 1980) has relied heavily on images of unattainable beauty in order to sell products supposedly related to beauty. The research presented here considers the psychological effects of being exposed to this type of advertising, and whether these effects are moderated by individual difference factors and social contextual factors.
Effects of Exposure to Advertising
Research on the effects of stereotypic gender representations in the media has shown that exposure to television is linked to more stereotypical views of gender roles (Kimball, 1986; Ross, Anderson, & Wisocki, 1982), less criticism
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of sexual harassment (Hansen & Hansen, 1988), diminished career orientation among women (Geis, Brown, Jennings, & Porter, 1984), and less confidence and higher levels of conformity among female viewers (Jennings, Geis, & Brown, 1980). In addition, Martin and Kennedy (1993) found a positive relationship between age and the tendency for girls to compare themselves with advertising models, with 8th- and 12th-grade girls being more likely to com- pare themselves to models than 4th-grade girls.
Research which has specifically examined the effects that ideal images have on women’s body satisfaction and perceptions of physical attractiveness has gener- ally yielded mixed results. Richins (1 991) examined women’s self-perceptions of physical attractiveness after viewing ideal image advertisements, as opposed to advertisements with no models and found no differences in participants’ attrac- tiveness ratings. However, other researchers have shown that ideal images do result in lower body satisfaction when women are led to believe that those who are depicted in the images are not professional models (Cash, Cash, & Butters, 1983). Still others have found that viewing ideal images results in lower levels of depression and higher levels ofpositive affect (Myers & Biocca, 1992). Such disparate findings may not only be a result of differences in methodology and outcome measures, but also because individual difference and social contextual factors were not included in the models. The present study was designed to take several potentially important moderating factors into account.
Social Judgments of Attractiveness
Social psychology has documented the importance of physical attractive- ness in people’s social judgments (e.g., Dion, Berscheid, & Walster, 1972; Hatfield & Sprecher, 1986). Social rewards are clearly influenced by individu- als’ physical attractiveness. Making salient the fact that negative social judg- ments are passed on those who are evaluated as unattractive could heighten people’s awareness of the importance of physical appearance. While this awareness could affect people in different ways, one dominant effect may be to undermine confidence in one’s physical attractiveness. Imagine overhearing a conversation between two people about a mutual friend who had “really let herself go” and gained a lot of weight. Since the communication may lead to increased levels of objective self-awareness (Duval & Wicklund, 1972; Wicklund, 1975), even those in a position to engage in downward social comparison may become preoccupied with the disconcerting images of either similarly gaining weight or being the subject of gossip. Also, exposing people to such a conversation may make salient a negative possible self (Markus, Hamill, & Sentis, 1987; Markus & Nurius, 1 9 8 6 b a self who could become heavier and less attractive in the future.
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Simply overhearing a conversation about weight gain and associated unat- tractiveness may sensitize women to the possibility of becoming overweight themselves. If overhearing such a conversation precedes exposure to ideal media images, viewers should be even more susceptible to the negative effects of ideal images.
Self-Monitoring
As previously mentioned, research on the outcome of viewing ideal images has not consistently found negative effects on women’s body satisfaction (Cash et al., 1983; Richins, 1991). However, most of this research has not taken into account the possibility that individual differences may exist in people’s re- sponses to ideal images. In the present research, we examined the moderating effect of self-monitoring.
Snyder (1974, 1987) identified individual differences in the degree to which people engage in self-monitoring. High self-monitors are characterized by a greater concern with self-presentation; they also tend to assess social situations and to make behavioral shifts according to the perceived demands of the situation. Low self-monitors, on the other hand, are more concerned with congruence between their behavior and their inner states and beliefs; and typically tend to exhibit a relatively high degree of correspondence between their inner states and their behavior, even if this means swimming against the social tide.
Although the concept of self-monitoring has been questioned on conceptual and methodological grounds (Briggs & Cheek, 1986, 1988; Briggs, Cheek, & Buss, 1980), previous research has demonstrated the importance of self-moni- toring in predicting reactions to advertising (e.g., DeBono & Packer, 1991; Snyder & DeBono, 1985). High self-monitors have been shown to evaluate image-oriented advertisements more positively, while low self-monitors more positively evaluate advertisements which impart information about a product (Snyder & DeBono, 1985). Similarly, high self-monitors’ preferences for products are more influenced by image-oriented advertisements, while low self-monitors are more influenced by information-based advertisements.
Since advertising in the fashion and beauty industry tends to focus more heavily on image, i t might be argued that high self-monitors would be more susceptible to its influence since they prefer, and possibly spend more time observing, image-oriented advertisements. If such advertising has the potential to diminish body esteem, then fashion and beauty advertising may have a particu- larly powerfid effect on high self-monitors. Furthermore, since high self-monitors are more concerned with self-presentation, they may be more concerned with attractiveness to begin with and, hence, more susceptible to cultural pressure
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to be attractive. Thus, being made aware of social judgments of attractiveness, in combination with exposure to ideal images, could result in lower levels of body satisfaction for high self-monitors.
On the other hand, it could be argued that since high self-monitors evaluate image-oriented advertisements more positively than information-oriented ad- vertisements, they may enjoy looking at such advertising. They may see image- based fashion advertisements not in terms of unattainable ideal images, but instead may view such advertisements as self-relevant and the images as goals to which one might reasonably aspire. If this is the case, then high self-monitoring women may not be adversely affected by the exposure to fashion advertising.
Instead, it may be that low self-monitoring women are more prone to diminished body esteem after being exposed to such images. While high self-monitors may to some degree inoculate themselves against the adverse effects of ideal image advertisements, low self-monitors, if they are less attracted to and spend less time looking at such advertisements, may have fewer psychological resources available to deal with ideal imagery in adver- tisements. The low self-monitor may be quite capable of recognizing the fact that an advertisement tells her nothing about the product, but it still may make her feel inadequate about herself because she compares her physical appear- ance against the constructed media image.
Furthermore, given the fact that high self-monitors are concerned with how they are perceived by others, we should expect to find that they are less satisfied with their bodies in social situations in which physical appearance is being evaluated. In contrast, low self-monitors’ body satisfaction ratings should not be negatively affected in such situations. Since low self-monitors tend to be more concerned with being consistent with their own internal standards, as opposed to pleasing or impressing others, they may actually react against any pressure to pay increased attention to their physical appearance and to aspire to some imposed ideal of physical beauty.
Weight
Although some researchers have used subjects’ weight as a covariate in examining the relationship between viewing ideal images and self-evaluations (Stice & Shaw, 1994), we included weight as a moderating variable in this study. Research examining objective self-awareness (Duval & Wicklund, 1972; Wicklund, 1975) and the effects of social comparison (Festinger, 1954; Pelham & Wachsmuth, 1995) indicates that weight may influence women’s reactions to ideal images. Contemporary ideal images communicate the mes- sage that only slender women are viewed as sexually attractive. Research in the area of objective self-awareness suggests that viewing ideal images would
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result in heavier women feeling more dissatisfied with their sexual attractive- ness than thinner women because they are hrther away from the ideal of slenderness. In contrast, thinner women should feel less dissatisfied in the face of ideal images because of the smaller discrepancy between the self and the ideal. Furthermore, since thinner women more closely approximate the stand- ard, for them media images may reinforce the value society places on thinness and attractiveness and, thus, reaffirm an aspect of the self. Steele and his colleagues (Steele, 1988; Steele & Lui, 1983; Steele, Spencer, & Lynch, 1993) have found evidence of the importance of self-affirmation in the maintenance of a positive self-concept. In contrast, for heavier women, the images may remind them simultaneously of contemporary standards concerning attractive- ness and ways in which they do not approximate those standards.
Overview and Hypotheses
The present study was designed to assess the effect of viewing ideal images on women’s feelings about their bodies. Further, we examined whether increas- ing awareness of social judgments of attractiveness would exacerbate the effects of the ideal images. Thus, women were presented with a series of either neutral or ideal images; however, before viewing these images, they heard either a neutral conversation or a judgmental conversation involving a woman who had gained weight and become less attractive. Franzoi and Shields’ (1 984) Body Esteem Scale (BES) was used to measure participants’ self-evaluations. The measure is comprised of three subscales which assess how an individual feels about different aspects of her physical self (i.e., sexual attractiveness, physical condition, and weight concern).
In examining participants’ self-evaluations, we were primarily interested in participants’ scores on the sexual attractiveness and physical condition subscales. We did not expect scores on the weight concern subscale to vary across experimental conditions simply because women’s dissatisfaction with body weight is so ubiquitous that it has been termed a “normative discontent” (Rodin et al., 1984). We expected to find the lowest self-evaluation scores among women who were in the ideal image condition and had overheard the judgmental conversation.
Given the differential responses of high and low self-monitors to advertis- ing, we expected to find differences in the effects of ideal images due to self-monitoring, although the exact nature of these expected differences was unclear. However, it was hypothesized that among those who heard the judg- mental conversation, high self-monitors’ self-evaluations would be negatively affected, while those of low self-monitors would not. In the neutral conversation condition, no difference was expected between high and low self-monitors.
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We also expected participants’ weight to moderate the effect of viewing media images on self-evaluations. Specifically, in the ideal image condition, weight was expected to be negatively related to body satisfaction, while no relationship was expected in the neutral image condition.
Method
Participants
Participants were 87 undergraduate women who took part in the experiment as part of their course requirement in an introductory psychology class. The average age of participants was 19. Of the participants 54% were White, 18% were Asian, 11% were African American, 6% were Hispanic, and the remain- ing 11% indicated that they were of other or mixed racial identity. Data for five participants were dropped because noise in an adjacent hallway prevented their hearing the conversation between the experimenter and the confederate. All other participants heard the interaction.
Stimulus Materials
Images. In each image condition, participants viewed 30 slides of images from popular magazines. In the neutral condition, none of the slides contained human images; most were advertisements for products such as stereo equip- ment, vehicles, and household products. In the ideal condition, 10 neutral slides were included with 20 slides presenting ideal images of the sort commonly found in women’s magazines such as Glamour, Cosmopolitan, and Vogue. Images were selected by the principal investigators and a team of research assistants. All images were selected on the basis of consensus regarding whether or not the models would be perceived by most people as attractive.
Conversation. In both conversation conditions, two female experimenters discussed a fictional, mutual female friend whom neither had seen recently. In the neutral condition, the friend had moved to a new apartment. In the judg- mental condition, the friend had “let herself go,” gained a lot of weight, and become less attractive. Scripts for both conditions are available from the authors.
Questionnaire Materials
Participants received two questionnaire packets. The first contained mea- sures of media exposure and self-monitoring. The second questionnaire contained the dependent measures involving body esteem and weight.
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Self-monitoring. Snyder and Gangestad’s ( 1 986) 18-item Self-Monitoring Scale was used to measure individual levels of self-monitoring. The 18-item version of this scale has been used widely. Snyder and Gangestad provide evidence of validity and report satisfactory internal consistency for the measure (+.70). Possible scores range from 0 to 18, with higher scores indicating higher levels of self-monitoring.
Body esteem. The BES (Franzoi & Shields, 1984) was used to assess several aspects of women’s satisfaction with their bodies. The scale asks respondents to rate their feelings about various parts of their bodies on a scale ranging from 1 (strongly negative) to 5 (stronglypositive). Scores for the various body parts are combined to form indices for three aspects of women’s body esteem: sexual attractiveness, physical condition, and weight concern. Higher scores indicate greater satisfaction with each aspect of body esteem. Good convergent and discriminant validity based on samples of female undergraduates has been reported for all three subscales (Franzoi & Herzog, 1987). There was high internal reliability for each of the three indices using the present sample; Cronbach’s alphas for physical condition, sexual attractiveness, and weight concern were .86, .86, and .91, respectively.
Physicalsize. Participants were asked to report their current weight and height.
Procedure
Experimental sessions were conducted with two to four participants in each session. All experimenters and confederates were female. At the beginning of each session, participants were told that one more participant was expected and were asked to f i l l out a consent form while they waited. While the consent forms were being completed, a confederate posing as an experimenter for another study entered the lab on the pretense of borrowing a pencil, addressed the experimenter by name, and had a brief conversation with her.
After the confederate left the room, the experimenter announced that the session would begin. The research was introduced as a study about factors which make advertisements memorable. Participants were told they would view a series of 30 slides of advertisements which they would later be asked to remember and that, in between viewing the slides and the recall task, they would be given a second questionnaire in order to keep them from rehearsing the slides they had seen. They were then asked to complete the first question- naire consisting of demographic and self-monitoring measures.
After viewing the slides, participants completed the second questionnaire which contained the dependent measures, ostensibly for another professor. Finally, they were given 1 min to list as many of the advertisements as they could remember. All participants were then fully debriefed.
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Table 1
Means and Standard Deviations for Primary Variables
Measure M SD
Weight Adjusted weight Self-monitoring Sexual attractiveness Physical condition Weight concern
132.52 2.04 9.95 3.58 3.48 2.85
25.22 0.35 3.37 0.62 0.76 0.99
Results
Table 1 presents the sample means and standard deviations. To assess the effects of ideal images and raising weight concerns on body esteem, hierarchi- cal multiple regression analyses were conducted using effect coding (Pedhazur, 1982) for the two independent variables. Participants’ adjusted weight (re- ported weight/height), and scores on self-monitoring, sexual attractiveness, physical condition, and weight concern were standardized in order to minimize the effects of multicollinearity (Jaccard, Turrisi, & Wan, 1990). Since prelimi- nary analyses indicated that there were no significant three-way or four-way interactions involving adjusted weight for any of the dependent variables, the model which will be presented includes weight in the first (main effect) and second (two-way interactions) steps of the regression analysis.
Sexual Attractiveness
As can be seen in Table 2, the inclusion of the two-way interaction terms resulted in a significant change in the multiple correlation coefficient. The change was a result of a significant Conversation x Self-Monitoring interaction. Simple effects analyses revealed that self-monitoring was positively related to feelings about sexual attractiveness in the neutral conversation condition, p = .33, t(70) = 3 . 0 0 , ~ < .05. However, overhearing the judgmental conversation resulted in a nonsignificant negative relationship between self-monitoring and sexual attractiveness, p = -. 19, t(70) = 1.73, ns. The interaction was further examined by bifurcating the self-monitoring variable at its median. Examination of the cell means indicated that participants low in self-monitoring felt more positive about their sexual attractiveness in the judgmental conversation than in the neutral
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Table 2
Multiple Regression Model Predicting Sexual Attractiveness
Predictor Standardized Overall R 2 at beta weight F each step
Main effects Self-monitoring Weight Conversation Images
Two-way interactions I x SM
C x SM I X W
c x w I X C
I x C x S M Three-way interaction
.07 0.26 .014 -.09 -.03 .o 1
.I3 -,26*** -. 19* -.oo -.18*
1.71 . 1 80a
.07 1.56 .184
Note. I = images; C = conversation; W =weight. aR2 at this step is significantly greater than R2 at the preceding step @ < .025). * p < .lo. ***p < .025.
conversation condition. In contrast, high self-monitors expressed less positive feelings about their sexual attractiveness in the judgmental, as opposed to the neutral, conversation condition. Thus, overhearing the judgmental conversa- tion resulted in a decrease in high self-monitors’ evaluations of sexual attrac- tiveness and an increase in low self-monitors’ feelings of sexual attractiveness.
There was also a marginally significant Image x Conversation interaction. Simple effects analyses revealed that subjects who viewed the ideal images felt less positive about their sexual attractiveness when they heard the judgmental as opposed to the neutral conversation, p = -.21,t(70) = 1 . 9 2 , ~ < .lo. In compari- son, sexual attractiveness scores did not differ in the judgmental and neutral conversation conditions after viewing neutral images, p = .15, t(70) = 1.37, ns.
The analysis also revealed a marginally significant Image x Weight interac- tion. Subsequent analyses indicated that participants’ weight was negatively re- lated to sexual attractiveness in the ideal image condition, p = -.28, t(70) = 2.55, p < .05. Thus, in the ideal condition, feelings about sexual attractiveness decreased
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Table 3
Multiple Regression Model Predicting Weight Concern
Standardized Overall R2 at Predictor beta weight F each step
3.79 .327
Main effects Self-monitoring .19* 5.80 .236a
Conversation -.01 Images .04
I x SM .04 C x SM -.20** I X W -. 16
c x w .05 I X C -.12
I x C x S M .03 3.38 .329
Weight -.44***
Two-way interactions
Three-way interaction
Note. I = images; C = conversation; W = weight. aR2 at this step is significantly greater than R2 at the preceding step (p < ,025). *p < . l o . **p < .05. ***p < .025.
as weight increased. In contrast, there was no significant relationship between weight and sexual attractiveness after viewing neutral images, p = . l o , t(70) = 0.91, ns. Bifurcating weight at its median revealed that thinner women, in the ideal image condition, felt more positive about their sexual attractiveness than did thinner women in the neutral condition. In comparison, heavier women felt less positive about their sexual attractiveness in the ideal image condition than in the neutral image condition.
Weight Concern
As can be seen in Table 3, there was a highly significant negative relation- ship between participants’ weight and scores on the weight concern subscale, so the heavier participants were, the less positive they felt about their weight. Self-monitoring was positively related to weight concern, with high self-moni- tors expressing more positive assessments on the weight concern subscale than low self-monitors. The addition of the two-way interactions resulted in a
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Table 4
Multiple Regression Model Predicting Physical Condition
Standardized Overall R 2 at Predictor beta weight F each step
2.5 1 .244a
Main effects Self-monitoring .19* 1.26 .063
Conversation .03 Images .03
I x SM .21* C x SM -.26*** I X W -.18
c x w -.17 I X C -.07
Weight -. 12
Two-way interactions
Three-way interaction I x C x S M .13 2.44 .261
Note. I = images; C = conversation; W = weight. aR2 at this step is significantly greater than R2 at the preceding step (p < . O X ) . * p < . l o . ***p < .025.
marginally significant change in the multiple correlation coefficient. The analyses revealed a significant Conversation x Self-Monitoring interaction. As with sexual attractiveness, weight concern was positively related to self-moni- toring in the neutral condition, p = .39, t(70) = 3.90, p < .01. However, overhearing the judgmental conversation resulted in a nonsignificant relation- ship between self-monitoring and weight concern, p = -.01, ns. Bifurcating self-monitoring at its median showed that hearing the judgmental conversation resulted in low self-monitors expressing less negative feelings about their weight, while high self-monitors expressed more negative feelings about weight in comparison to those in the neutral conversation condition.
Physical Condition
The introduction of the two-way interaction terms resulted in a significant change in the multiple correlation coefficient. As can be seen in Table 4, there
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was a significant Conversation x Self-Monitoring interaction. Simple effects analyses indicated that feelings about physical condition were positively re- lated to self-monitoring in the neutral conversation condition, p = .46, (70) = 4.35, p < .01. However, the relationship between self-monitoring and physical condition was nonsignificant in the judgmental conversation condition, p = -.08, ns. Bifurcating self-monitoring at its median showed that after hearing the judgmental conversation, low self-monitors expressed less concern about their physical condition, whereas high self-monitors expressed greater concern, relative to the neutral conversation condition.
There was also a marginally significant Image x Self-Monitoring interaction. In the ideal image condition, self-monitoring was positively related to feelings about physical condition, p = .40, (70) = 2 . 7 5 , ~ < .01. In contrast, there was no relationship between self-monitoring and physical condition in the neutral image condition, /3 = -.02, ns. Again, bifurcation of self-monitoring at its median revealed that low self-monitors expressed less positive feelings about their physi- cal condition after viewing ideal as opposed to neutral images, whereas high self-monitors expressed more positive feelings in the ideal image condition.
Discussion
The purpose of this research was to examine whether social and individual difference factors serve to moderate women’s reactions to media images which reinforce current standards of attractiveness for women. The present findings indicate that women are not all similarly affected by idealized representations of women.
In the neutral image condition, there was no relationship between self- monitoring and women’s feelings about their physical condition; in contrast, among women who were exposed to ideal images, there was a positive relation- ship between self-monitoring and feelings regarding physical condition. We also found that while there was no relationship between weight and sexual attractiveness in the neutral image condition, participants’ weight was nega- tively related to feelings about sexual attractiveness in the ideal image condi- tion. Compared to those in the neutral image condition, after viewing ideal images, heavier women felt less positive, while thinner women felt more positive about their sexual attractiveness. Self-monitoring was also found to moderate the effects of being made aware of social judgments about attractive- ness. For high self-monitors, overhearing the judgmental conversation resulted in less positive feelings about sexual attractiveness, physical condition, and weight concern, while for low self-monitors, body esteem levels were higher in the judgmental conversation condition than in the neutral conversation condition. As a whole, these findings indicate that individual difference factors
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play an important role in determining responses to events which reinforce social standards of attractiveness.
The current findings may help to explain inconsistent findings from previous research. For example, while Cash et al. (1983) found that exposure to viewing ideal images resulted in diminished self-evaluations, Myers and Biocca (1992) demonstrated that viewing ideal images may enhance positive affect and result in lower levels of depression. Myers and Biocca propose that their findings may have been due to participants entertaining thoughts of actually attaining the ideal presented in the images. We suggest that entertaining such thoughts may be easier and more likely for women who come closer to approximating an ideal; the more women deviate from an ideal, the more likely their psychological re- sponses to ideal images may involve self-deprecating thoughts and negative self-perceptions. Our findings indicate that among those women who were pre- sented with ideal images, those who approached the current ideal of thinness were most likely to express higher levels of body esteem, while those further away from the ideal expressed more negative feelings about their bodies. It may be that inconsistent findings from previous research are due in part to samples which differed from each other on some important dimension such as weight.
The results pertaining to weight also support the assertion that upward comparisons can result in positive self-evaluations; for example, when the distance between a target and the self is not too large (Collins, 1996; Manis & Paskewitz, 1984; Pelham & Wachsmuth, 1995). Collins has proposed that an expectation of difference from a desirable target will result in low self- evaluations; alternatively, expectations of similarity to a desirable target should result in assimilation processes and positive self-evaluations. Thus, it may be that while heavier women’s self-evaluations were a result of contrast effects, thinner women’s more positive self-evaluations were a consequence of assimilation processes.
Self-monitoring was found to moderate the effect of viewing ideal images on women’s feelings about their physical condition. Past research has found that self-monitoring alone is not an important predictor of women’s ratings of their health and fitness, nor of the importance they place on fitness (Sullivan & Harnish, 1990). We found that, while there was no relationship between self-monitoring and physical condition in the neutral image condition, viewing ideal images actually resulted in high self-monitors reporting more positive feel- ings regarding their physical condition. It may be that for high self-monitors, ideal images communicate the message that people should not only look good, but that part of looking good is being in good physical condition. Consequently, they shift their physical condition ratings in a more positive direction. It should be noted that a similar, although nonsignificant, pattern of results was found for the sexual attractiveness subscale.
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We also found that overhearing the conversation about weight gain and unattractiveness resulted in high self-monitors feeling less positive and low self-monitors more positive about all three aspects of their body esteem. Such findings are consistent with the conception of high self-monitors as being particularly attentive to social standards and opinions, while low self-monitors are more concerned with meeting internal standards (DeBono & Packer, 1991; Snyder, 1974; Snyder & DeBono, 1985; Sullivan & Harnish, 1990).
Although previous research has found very little evidence of a relationship between self-monitoring and people’s attempts to make changes in their physi- cal appearance (Cash & Wunderle, 1988), the present findings suggest that negative messages regarding attractiveness may moderate this relationship. Specifically, the current results suggest that being exposed to messages which play on fears and insecurities could lead high self-monitors to engage in behaviors designed to alter their appearance.
In the ideal image condition, there was some evidence that overhearing the judgmental conversation resulted in more negative self-evaluations. This ef- fect, however, was not as strong as we expected. It is possible that different psychological responses to the conversation may have moderated its impact. It may be that hearing the judgmental conversation led to increased objective self-awareness. Some people, however, may have coped with such feelings by actively enhancing their self-evaluations, while others may have been left feeling more uncertain about themselves. The finding that self-monitoring was negatively related to feelings about sexual attractiveness in the judgmental conversation condition while a positive relationship existed in the neutral conversation condition supports such a contention.
The argument that media images of women have harmful effects on women’s body image and self-esteem has not been supported by strong and consistent empirical research findings. The present research, by including social and individual difference factors, demonstrates that some women’s self-evaluations are, in fact, harmed by such images, while others’ evaluations are enhanced. It demonstrates that arguments about the harmful effects of ideal imagery may be too simplistic. For some women, limited exposure to ideal images does not result in decrements to body esteem. For other women, however, this exposure is harmful. We found that even in a college-age sample of women who, as a group, were relatively close to fitting the ideal in terms of weight, some decrements in body esteem did occur.
The current research identifies social and individual factors which moder- ate the relationship between media exposure and body esteem. Future research should continue to examine these and other factors which may also play a similar role. It would be interesting, for example, to see whether and how individual difference factors such as age and self-schemas affect women’s
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reactions to viewing ideal images. For instance, it may be that the effects of ideal images become more intense as women age, and then reach a plateau or even decline after women reach a certain age range. Markus et al. (1987) found that overweight and obese women who were schematic for weight endorsed overweight adjectives more readily, and responded faster to such adjectives, than did aschematic overweight women. Such findings would suggest that indi- viduals who are schematic for attractiveness would see ideal imagery as more self-relevant than would aschematics and could, therefore, be more susceptible to its effects. Other potential moderators, such as public self-consciousness or social anxiety, could also be examined as we move toward a more compre- hensive understanding of the effects of the media on the self-concept.
Finally, the current research considers the effect of a very brief exposure to print media. Since media images of women are so pervasive in contemporary culture, future research should also examine the long-term effects of continued media exposure.
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