Parental and media influence on body image and depression: the mediational role of self-concept clarity

Abstract

Objective: This study examined the association among media, parental influence self-concept clarity (SCC), body image, and depression. Participants: 275 college students in South Korea participated in the survey. Methods: A structural equation model was applied to test the mediation model. Results: Results supported the hypothesized model and indicated that SCC mediated the association between media association and negative body image. Moreover, parental influence was directly associated with negative body image which, in turn, was associated with depression. Conclusions: Given that SSC mediates media's influences on college students' body image, practitioners can help students who are suffering from negative body image to have a clear sense of self by exploring other aspects of one's self, other than body image. Parental influences directly affected college students' body image in S. Korea, and these results conceptualize negative body image in terms of individual SSC with cultural consideration.

Keywords:

• Body image
• depression
• media influence
• parental influence
• self-concept clarity (SSC)

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Hankuk University of Foreign Studies Research Fund.