The Body Hears What the Mind Thinks: Body Appreciation, Body Surveillance, and Media Use among High School Students

• In Event: 1-030 - Expanding Assessments and Assumptions of Objectification Theory among Youth

Abstract/Description

Background: Objectification theory (Fredrickson & Roberts, 1997) proposes that women in Western society are raised in a culture that views them not as active agents but as sexual objects, a collection of body parts whose value is judged by their utility and attractiveness to others. Findings demonstrate that media serve as purveyors of this objectified body consciousness, presenting women in ways that equate their value to their sexual attractiveness. Because adolescents spend an average of eight hours each day consuming media, it seems apt that media researchers begin to investigate how chronic exposure may be linked to the practice of self-objectification (Rideout, Foehr, & Roberts, 2010). Yet few studies have actually examined the link between everyday media use and self-objectification, and even fewer have done so among adolescent consumers of mainstream American media (Ward, Seabrook, Manago, & Reed, 2016).

With the emergence of positive psychology, researchers have increasingly emphasized that the study of both positive and negative aspects of body image are essential to moving the field forward (Cash & Smolak, 2011; Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000). Proponents of this approach suggest that by studying positive aspects of body image, researchers can better understand how to protect women from negative body image threats. Positive body image includes aspects of body appreciation, body acceptance and love, broadly conceptualizing beauty, adaptive appearance investment, and inner positivity (Tylka & Wood-Barcalow, 2015). Avalos, Tylka, and Wood-Barcalow (2005) developed the Body Appreciation Scale to help quantify this construct. Though this construct acts as natural foil to self-objectification, no research to date has examined how everyday media exposure is related to body appreciation.

Accordingly, our study examined associations between self-objectification, body appreciation, and three genres of television (dramas, sitcoms, and reality television). In addition, we examined whether body appreciation moderates the influence of media on adolescents’ tendency to self-objectify.

Method: Participants in the current study were 169 high school girls and boys aged 13-18 (M = 16.39, 87.6% White). Participants completed the Objectified Body Consciousness Scale (Youth) to assess their levels of body surveillance, and the Body Appreciation Scale to assess positive body image. To assess their media usage, students reported how often they viewed 32 different television programs spanning three genres.

Results: Boys and girls differed significantly on their levels of both self-objectification and body appreciation. Boys expressed significantly more body appreciation and significantly less self-objectification than girls. Results showed that adolescents who consumed more reality television and more dramas engaged in more self-objectification than adolescents who consumed less of these programs. Sitcom consumption was unrelated to adolescents’ self-objectification. In contrast, all three genres of television were unrelated to adolescents’ feelings of body appreciation. Preliminary analyses indicate that body appreciation significantly moderates the effect of television on self-objectification.

Conclusion: These results demonstrate that adolescents’ positive and negative feelings about their bodies are differentially influenced by the media. Future work should examine how adolescents interact and make meaning of different media sources and how these processes help cultivate different feelings about their bodies.

Authors

• Petal Grower, University of Michigan
  Presenting Author

• L. Monique Ward, University of Michigan

• Michael A Gilbert, The Ohio State University