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Abstract
Does awareness of female body ideals affect women's global self-esteem? We measured awareness of ideal standards for beauty via two approaches. As one approach, participants (55 undergraduate women) self-reported their general propensity to be aware of society's thin ideal standard. As a second approach, we measured visual attention orienting to ideal standards; we covertly measured participants' eye movements to peers' purported ideal standards. Self-reported awareness predicted lower baseline self-esteem; this relationship was mediated by internalization of the thin ideal. Awareness as assessed through attention orienting to peers' ideal standards predicted decreases in global self-esteem, above the effects of self-reported awareness, internalization, and actual measures of physical fitness. Implications for awareness of ideal standards and the media's portrayal of the thin ideal are discussed.
Notes
Although height and weight do predict participants' BMI, these aspects of one's body are separate constructs that factor in to general impressions of their own body. The concept of BMI and participants' own BMI was explained via the Contour Drawing Rating Scale, which presents women of different body shapes. Thus, height, weight, and body shape (BMI) can each be a separate source of concern reflected in participants' impressions of their body.
The relationship between internalization and RSE1 remains the same even when adding actual BMI, WHR, and the eye-tracking measure of awareness in to the model. No factor other than internalization is a significant predictor of RSE1 in this model, ts (47) < 1.23, ps > .23.
This model did not change in any meaningful way when including interaction terms.