Introduction to the Special Issue: Body Image—Vulnerability Factors and Processes Linking Sociocultural Pressures and Body Dissatisfaction

By H. Dittmar. 2005

112 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract This special issue highlights the growing importance of research on body image in social and clinical psychology. Its prominence is increasing, its significance for both women’s and men’s psychological functioning is being recognised, and it is becoming an area of theoretical and empirical interest in its own right. Sociocultural theory postulates links between pressures from social sources (mass media, peer groups, significant individuals) and body dissatisfaction. The studies in this special issue all contribute to a better understanding of the nature of these links through either examining factors that make individuals more vulnerable to sociocultural pressures or identifying psychological processes through which these pressures take their negative effects on body satisfaction. Implications for future research directions are discussed.

Subfields: Clinical Psychology, Experimental and Cognitive Psychology, Marketing

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/a8245bb287c9ba21ec6a925c4c0112a6e86c4c76

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Citations in the corpus

Does Media Type Matter? The Role of Identification in Adolescent Girls’ Media Consumption and the Impact of Different Thin-Ideal Media on Body Image (2011, background): “Negative body image may be defined as the psychologically salient discrepancy between a person’s perceived body and their ideal body (Halliwell and Dittmar 2006), which manifests itself as the experience of negative thoughts and esteem about one’s body and appearance (Dittmar 2005).”
How do "Body Perfect" Ideals In tHe MedIa Have a negatIve IMPact on Body IMage and BeHavIors? factors and Processes related to self and IdentIty (2009, unknown): “…findings mark a conceptual shift toward identifying vulnerability factors that make individual women more or less responsive to media influences (moderators) and starting to examine the psychological processes (mediators) though which media affect body image (Dittmar, 2005; Tiggemann, 2005).”
An examination of general and specific motivational mechanisms for the relations between body dissatisfaction and eating behaviors (2007, unknown): “…influence the development of body image-related problems, a number of researchers have focused on the sociocultural pressures about body image and the internalization of the “thin–ideal” as risk factors for body dissatisfaction (Dittmar, 2005; Levine & Harrison, 2004; Polivy & Herman, 2004).”
The role of the media in body image concerns among women: a meta-analysis of experimental and correlational studies. (2008, background): “Interestingly, Dittmar and Howard (2004) found that women reported less body-focused anxiety after exposure to attractive, average-size models than after exposure to no models; the lowered anxiety, in a sense, demonstrates a relief effect due to exposure to “average” models.”
Media Exposure, Body Dissatisfaction, and Disordered Eating in Middle-aged Women (2011, background): “Given that the majority of women ‘‘fall short’’ of this stringent beauty standard, the comparison is almost inevitably upward, promoting body discontent (Dittmar, 2005).”