Exploring the Influence of Mediated Beauty: Examining Individual and Social Factors in White and Black Adolescent Girls' Appearance Evaluations

Abstract

This project explored media exposure, self-esteem, and the role that sports participation might play in cultivating perceptions and expectations of ideal beauty and attractiveness in others using a sample of girls who have varying degrees of athletic involvement. The study objective was to assess the factors that were stronger predictors of more favorable appearance estimates of others based on involvement in sports, race, age, media exposure and self-esteem. This study of 117 adolescent Black and White girls measured media use and media preferences, their beliefs about the importance of appearance attributes and self-esteem to determine if these factors shaped the way they viewed attractiveness in others. Findings from this survey yielded interesting but conflicting results with regard to potential correlates of higher or lower appearance evaluations. Type of sport played, time spent viewing thin-ideal media content, and self-esteem were the strongest predictors of higher or lower appearance evaluations of others. Participants' ethnicity was not a significant predictor of higher or lower appearance evaluations; however, differences in athletic participation and self-esteem did vary by ethnicity. These and other findings are discussed.

KEYTERMS:

• adolescent girls
• appearance ideals
• sports participation
• thin ideal television

An earlier version of this manuscript was presented to the Instructional & Developmental Communication Division at the Annual Meeting of ICA in Montreal, Canada, 2008.

Notes

Youth soccer has multiple levels of competition ranging from recreational to club, which places players in Division I or Division II competition.