The relationship between skin tone dissatisfaction and sun tanning behaviour

Figures & data

Figure 1. The Skin Tone Rating Scale. Participants select the image that best represents their current skin tone and then the image that best represents their desired skin tone.

Table 1. Means (and standard deviations) for all variables measured among 156 Australian undergraduate women

Measure	M	SD
Peer and media influence^1	3.59	0.60
Physical appearance reasons for tanning^2	2.71	0.79
Internalisation of a tanned ideal^1	4.11	1.43
Skin tone dissatisfaction^3	1.64	1.13
Sun tanning (hours/week)	3.27	5.36

Range = 1–6.

Range = 1–5.

Range = −7 to +7, with scores closer to 0 indicative of greater satisfaction.

Table 2. Correlations between skin tone dissatisfaction and the Physical Appearance Reasons for Tanning Scale (PARTS), internalisation of a tanned ideal, peer and media influence, and sun exposure

Variables	1	2	3	4
1. Skin tone dissatisfaction	–
2. PARTS	.41**	–
3. Internalisation of a tanned ideal	.52**	.60**	–
4. Peer and media influence	.42**	.30**	.36**	–
5. Sun tanning (hours/week)	.26**	.27**	.33**	.31**

Note. The pattern of associations was the same if non‐tanners were excluded from analyses.

**p < .01.

Table 3. Multiple mediation analyses (MMA) with unstandardised coefficients (and standard error (SE)), and estimates of direct and indirect pathways (with 95% confidence intervals (CI)), examining peer and media influence as a predictor of skin tone dissatisfaction, N = 145

	Unstandardised coefficient (standard error (SE))		Direct effect	Indirect effect (CI95%)	Sobel test
	IV → MV	MV → DV	IV → DV | MV		z
MMA: PMI—SkTD
PMI → ITI → SkTD	.86 (.19)***	.28 (.07)***	.42**	.57 (0.12:0.42)	2.93**
PMI → PARTS → SkTD	.41 (.11)***	.18 (.12)	.42**	.07 (‐0.03:0.20)	1.32

Notes. IV = independent variable; MV = mediator variable; DV = dependent variable; MV → DV = unique contribution of mediator variable to dependent variable when mediators are entered jointly; Direct effect IV → DV|MV = relationship between IV and DV after controlling for indirect effects; Indirect effect = mediating pathway between (i) IV and MVs, and (ii) between MVs and DVs, if confidence interval (CI) does not contain zero, the mediating effect is considered statistically significant; Sobel test = significance of mediation; ITI = internalisation of a tanned ideal; PARTS = appearance reasons for tanning; PMI = peer and media influence; SkTD = skin tone dissatisfaction.

***p < .001, **p < .01.