| When females internalize sociocultural ideals of thinness and beauty found in Western society,they are likely tocompare their bodies to unrealistic physical standards propagatedby visual media. If appearance-focused, upward comparisonsoccur, femalesmay evaluate themselves as not measuring up to strictideals of beautyto prompt heightened body dissatisfaction. Dittmar and Howard (2004) demonstrated thatexposureto advertisementsfeaturingidealized female bodieselevatedbody dissatisfaction,particularlyamongfemales that internalizedunrealistic and highly unobtainable ideals as synonymous totheir own personal standardof attractiveness. To replicate and extend Dittmar and Howard’s (2004) findings, all participants were heterosexual females (n= 180; age 18 –30, M = 26.17)categorizedaseither high or low internalizers andexposedto visual advertisements containingeither a neutral product, athin-idealized female model wearinga swimsuit, or identicalswimsuitswith no femalepresent. After viewingstimuli, participants completed three body imagemeasures to determine whether the manipulation elicited heightened body dissatisfaction. Following, participants rated images of males varying in attractiveness to determine whether matepreferences(evaluations of attractiveness and interest in a sexual encounter)weresimilarlyinfluenced. It was expected that high internalizing participants exposed to images of thin-idealized females would express the greatest body dissatisfaction following the manipulation;this prediction was partially supported.No main effect of image type resulted; however,asignificant main effect of internalization indicated that high internalizers experienced greater body dissatisfaction across all body imagemeasures compared to low internalizers. Implications included supportthat internalizationof appearance
xiiideals appearsto increase vulnerability to experience body dissatisfaction which in turnmay also influence the mate preferencesof heterosexual females.Keywords: internalization, female,body image, body dissatisfaction, thin-ideal, appearance, sociocultural ideals, attractiveness |