Internalization of Appearance Ideals and Appearance Comparison among Adolescent Boys and Girls: The Role of Identity Formation

ABSTRACT

The detrimental impact of sociocultural pressures on adolescents’ body image has been widely established. However, it remains unclear why or for whom such pressures lead to increased appearance ideals internalization and appearance comparison. This cross-sectional study investigated moderating and indirect effects of identity confusion/synthesis in the relationship between (1) sociocultural pressures and (2) appearance ideals internalization and appearance comparison. The study comprised 685 community adolescents (13–19 years; M_age = 14.80; SD_age = 0.93; 55.2% girls). Participants completed self-report questionnaires on sociocultural pressures (Sociocultural Attitudes Toward Appearance Questionnaire-4; SATAQ-4), identity confusion/synthesis (Erikson Psychosocial Stage Inventory; EPSI), thin-ideal and muscular-ideal internalization (SATAQ-4), and appearance comparison (Physical Appearance Comparison Scale; PACS). Structural equation models with latent variables were estimated. The current results pointed to both moderating and indirect effects of identity formation in the relationship between sociocultural pressures and appearance ideals internalization and appearance comparison in boys and girls. No significant differences were found between boys and girls in the moderating or indirect models. These results highlight the need to integrate identity functioning in sociocultural theories on body image formation, and to address a healthy identity development in prevention and intervention programs targeting appearance ideals internalization and appearance comparison in adolescents.

KEYWORDS:

• Identity formation
• sociocultural pressures
• appearance ideals internalization
• appearance comparison

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary materials

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed on the publisher’s website.

Notes

1. As our sample consisted mainly of underaged students, we calculated the adjusted BMI [(BMI/Percentile 50 of BMI for age and gender) x 100] which accounts for gender-specific growth charts of a representative Flemish sample (Roelants & Hauspie, 2004).

2. Clustering the responses by school in the primary models resulted in virtually identical results. Hence, only the results without clustering per school were provided in the current manuscript.

3. Both univariate and multivariate analyses were conducted. As the results were virtually identical, only the results of the multivariate analyses are reported. The results of the univariate results are provided as supporting information.