The Mediating Role of Appearance Comparisons in the Relationship Between Media Usage and Self-Objectification in Young Women
By Jasmine Fardouly, P. Diedrichs, Lenny R. Vartanian, Emma Halliwell. 2015
123 citations recorded by the source corpus.
The media’s portrayal of women is often sexually objectifying, and greater exposure to objectifying media is associated with higher levels of self-objectification among young women. One reason why media usage may be associated with self-objectification is because women may be comparing their appearance to others in the media. The present study examined (a) the relationship between the usage of different media types (online social media [Facebook], Internet, television, music videos, and magazines) and self-objectification among young women, (b) whether appearance comparison tendencies in general mediated any observed relationships, and (c) whether appearance comparisons to specific types of women on Facebook (self, family, close friends, distant peers, and celebrities) mediated any relationship between Facebook usage and self-objectification. Female participants (N = 150) aged 17–25 years completed questionnaires about their media usage, appearance comparison tendency in general, appearance comparisons to specific target groups on Facebook, and self-objectification. Results showed that Facebook usage and magazine usage were positively correlated with self-objectification and that these relationships were mediated by appearance comparisons in general. In addition, the relationship between Facebook usage and self-objectification was mediated by comparisons to one’s peers on Facebook. These findings suggest that appearance comparisons can play an important role in self-objectification among young women.
Subfields: Clinical Psychology, Gender Studies
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/98c358b493201a794c6b9e4fd94a61f06301551c
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In Clinical Psychology
- Chandra E. Feltman
- Dawn M. Szymanski
- Tiffany Melioli
- Jasmine Fardouly
- Lenny R. Vartanian
- Brydie K. Willburger
- Rachel Florence Rodgers
- Hyosun Kim
In Gender Studies
- Chandra E. Feltman
- Dawn M. Szymanski
- Tiffany Melioli
- Lenny R. Vartanian
- Rachel Florence Rodgers
- Jasmine Fardouly
- Gina P. Owens
- Susan Kashubeck‐West
Citations in the corpus
- Instagram use and young women’s body image concerns and self-objectification: Testing mediational pathways (2018, background): “Research shows that appearance comparisons to different target groups on Facebook are differentially associated with women’s appearance concerns and self-objectification (Fardouly et al., 2015b; Fardouly and Vartanian, 2015).”
- The Relationship Between Body Image Concerns, Eating Disorders and Internet Use, Part I: A Review of Empirical Support (2016, background): “Among Australian female college students, Facebook usage was associated with body image concerns (Fardouly and Vartanian 2015).”
- Instagram Use and Self-Objectification: The Roles of Internalization, Comparison, Appearance Commentary, and Feminism (2018, methodology): “Reported alphas for the full-scale score were .91 and .92 using university samples (Fardouly et al., 2015a; 2015b).”
- Social Media and Body Image Concerns: Current Research and Future Directions (2016, background): “Overall, there is consistent evidence that social media usage (particularly Facebook) is associated with body image concerns among young men and women [14,16– 18,20,21 ,23,24], and that this association may strengthen over time [29 ,30 ], however, brief exposure to one’s own Facebook account does no”