EFFECT OF MODEL SIZE ON FEMALE ADOLESCENTS’ BODY IMAGE BY KELLEY M. GUDAHL A THESIS PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ADVERTISING UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA 2006 Copyright 2006 by Kelley M. Gudahl This document is dedicated to the graduate students of the University of Florida. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank my entire thesis committee for their help during my entire college experience at the University of Florida. They have helped me through many obstacles thrown my way and their help is not unappreciated. I would also like to thank Robert Bolen for his help in the administration of my experiment. He graciously allowed me to use his students to conduct my experiment on. Lastly, I would like to thank my mother for all her help throughout the course of my thesis. She was a continual support system when I needed it most. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.................................................................................................iv LIST OF TABLES............................................................................................................vii FIGURE...........................................................................................................................viii ABSTRACT.......................................................................................................................ix CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION........................................................................................................1 Eating Disorders...........................................................................................................4 Mass Media’s Relationship to Eating Disorders..........................................................8 Theoretical Perspective...............................................................................................11 Social Comparison Theory..................................................................................11 Social Cognitive Theory......................................................................................13 Chapter Summary.......................................................................................................15 2 LITERATURE REVIEW...........................................................................................16 Thinning Images of Women over Time......................................................................16 Gender Differences in Thinness-Promoting Messages...............................................18 How Female’s Weight is presented in the Media.......................................................19 Internalization of the Thin Ideal.................................................................................19 Social Comparison......................................................................................................21 Media’s Depictions of Thinness and their Effects......................................................22 Advertising’s Influence..............................................................................................25 Limitations of Previous Studies and What this Thesis Will Contribute.....................27 3 METHOD...................................................................................................................29 Hypotheses..................................................................................................................30 Operational Definitions..............................................................................................32 Independent Variable...........................................................................................32 Experimental Stimulus........................................................................................34 Why Photographs Were Used.............................................................................36 Questionnaires.....................................................................................................36 v Dependent Variables...........................................................................................37 Reliability and Validity.......................................................................................39 Control for Confounding Variables............................................................................41 Experimental Design..................................................................................................42 Subjects................................................................................................................42 The Experiment...................................................................................................43 Analysis...............................................................................................................44 4 RESULTS...................................................................................................................46 Sample........................................................................................................................46 Covariates...................................................................................................................46 Hypothesis Testing.....................................................................................................47 Hypothesis One Results.......................................................................................48 Hypothesis Two Results......................................................................................50 Hypothesis Three Results....................................................................................50 Hypothesis Four Results......................................................................................51 Hypothesis Five Results......................................................................................53 5 DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS......................................................................55 Summary of Results....................................................................................................55 Implications................................................................................................................59 Contributions to Mass Communication Literature.....................................................59 Limitations..................................................................................................................61 Future Research..........................................................................................................62 Conclusions.................................................................................................................63 APPENDIX A EXPERIMENT ADVERTISEMENTS......................................................................65 B QUESTIONNAIRES..................................................................................................77 C STATISTICAL ANALYSIS TABLES......................................................................84 D IRB PROTOCOL AND CONSENT FORMS............................................................87 LIST OF REFERENCES...................................................................................................93 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH...........................................................................................100 vi LIST OF TABLES Table page 3-1 Coder ratings for model size................................................................................. 34 4-1 Covariate break down of subjects by experimental condition................................46 4-2 Descriptive statistics of body-focused anxiety given internalization tendencies and experimental conditions.....................................................................................48 4-3 Descriptive statistics of body-focused anxiety given internalization tendencies and experimental conditions when BMI is used as a covariable..............................49 4-4 Descriptive statistics for body-focused anxiety given the differences between ideal and actual state................................................................................................51 4-5 Descriptive statistics for body-focused anxiety given the differences between ideal and actual state when BMI is accounted for....................................................52 4-6 Descriptive statistics between ideal and actual state and the different model conditions.................................................................................................................53 4-7 Descriptive statistics for the difference between ideal and actual state and the different model conditions when BMI is accounted for...........................................54 vii FIGURE Figure page 1-1 Social Cognitive Theory Model...............................................................................13 viii Abstract of Thesis Presented to the Graduate School of the University of Florida in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Advertising EFFECT OF MODEL SIZE ON FEMALE ADOLESCENTS’ BODY IMAGE By Kelley M. Gudahl August 2006 Chair: J. Robyn Goodman Major Department: Advertising Over time, the ideal woman that is presented in the media has been continually shrinking. The media encourage this ideal through programming that portrays the beautiful and successful heroine as thin. Many researchers have linked the internalization of the thin ideal found in the media to body dissatisfaction and eating disorder symptomology. This internalization leaves adolescent females constantly pressured to be thin and often leads them to social comparisons. This thesis contributes to the information on the topic by testing how the differences among advertisements containing average-size models, thin models or no models at all have affected a young woman’s body satisfaction. None of the previous experiments dealing with the effect of advertising on female adolescents have created their own stimuli to test the differences. The results of this thesis indicate that the body size of models in advertisements targeted to female adolescents is not as influential as once thought. These results suggest ix that some other factor besides model size is to blame for levels of body-focused anxiety in female adolescents. x