The Effect Of Mass Media On Body Satisfaction Of Women With Fat Negative Physicial Self

Mass media is the most effective cultural communication tool in contemporary society.It advocates that "thin is beautiful",which affects millions of women’s pursuit of thin figure.In today’s mass media,there are "thin" and successful female images everywhere.Under the influence of the media,more and more women are on a long way to lose weight,and some even spend a lot of money on plastic surgery.In the process of pursuit of thin figure,more and more women have negative perceptions,attitudes and corresponding behavioral tendencies towards their bodies,for example,fat negative physical self.Fat negative physical self plays an important negative role in the development of one’s body and mind.Previous studies on fat negative physical self women mostly focused on the subjects’ cognitive processing preferences for body-related words,while there are a few studies about the impact of mass media on the state-based body satisfaction of fat negative physical self women.In order to investigate the influence of thin-ideal female images in mass media on the implicit and explicit body satisfaction of fat negative physical self women,two behavioral experiments were conducted in this study.In experiment 1,a mixed design,two picture types(thin ideal female picture,landscape picture)×2 fat negative body self-rating scale score(high group,low group)×2 body part of speech(positive and negative)was adopted.Among them,picture type and scale score are variables between subjects,body part of speech is variables within subjects,and dependent variables are reaction time of body words and visual simulation scale score under the priming of identity word "I".The first experiment found that:(1)Whether women with high or low body self-esteem were fat or negative,they all had positive implicit self-esteem in the body area related to fat and thin.(2)In the fat negative body self-low group,there was no significant difference between the two types of pictures in terms of both internal and external body satisfaction.(3)In the high group of fat negative body self,there was no significant difference in the explicit body satisfaction of the subjects under different pictures,which was the same as the low group.The difference was that the inner body satisfaction of the subjects under thin ideal female pictures was significantly lower than that under landscape pictures.Under the influence of thin ideal female pictures,the internal and explicit body satisfaction of fatnegative body self-high group subjects were separated.The possible explanation for this result is that for women with fat negative body and high self-esteem,thin ideal female pictures are a threatening information.In the implicit attitude of automation,they are negatively affected by such pictures and show real body attitudes.On the controllable level of consciousness,its explicit physical satisfaction is easily self-modified because of the social approval effect,failing to truly reflect its negative performance on the internal body satisfaction.However,there is another possibility that the order of measurement in this experiment interferes with the true performance of explicit physical satisfaction of women in the high group of fat negative physical self.In order to further explore whether the order of measurement will affect the explicit physical satisfaction of women with fat negative physical self-high group,Experiment 2 was carried out.The subjects in Experiment 2 were women who scored more than 2.5 on the fat negative body self-esteem scale.The mixed experimental design was adopted.The inter-group variables were measurement order(first implicit then explicit,first explicit then implicit)and image type(thin ideal female pictures,landscape pictures).The intra-group variables were body vocabulary(positive and negative),and the dependent variables were the same as experiment 1.The second experiment found that the order of measurement did not affect the subjects’ explicit physical satisfaction.This shows that the explicit body satisfaction of women with fat negative body self is not disturbed by images of thin ideal women.By synthesizing the results of the two experiments,we draw the following conclusions:(1)Whether women with high or low body self-esteem are fat,negative body self-esteem,they have positive implicit self-esteem in the field of body related to fat and thin.(2)The effect of thin ideal female pictures on female’s satisfaction with invisibility is regulated by the baseline level of female’s body satisfaction.Thin ideal female pictures do not affect the body satisfaction of fat negative body self-low-score women,but only the body satisfaction of fat negative body self-high-score women.Moreover,the influence is separated from the implicit and explicit aspects of body satisfaction: the inner body satisfaction of fat negative body self-high-score women is negatively affected by thin ideal female pictures.The negative effects were only reflected in the subjects’ response to positive body words;the explicit body satisfaction of women with fat negative body and high self-esteem was not affected by images of thin ideal women...