Body Dissatisfaction And Mass Media Influence In Female Undergraduates

Many studies abroad have showed body dissatisfaction among female is prevalent in recent years. Moreover, there has been substantial empirical evidence indicating that body dissatisfaction is highly related to lower self-esteem, lower life satisfaction and eating disorders. And thin idealized models in mass media have been influenced females'body dissatisfaction. Internalized these thin idealized body images by females, that is'thin-ideal'internalization, which also impact their body dissatisfaction.In this thesis, femal undergraduates are as the subjects, by questionnares and experiment methods to analyze the current situation of their body dissatisfaction, and explore the influnences of media on the state and trait of their body dissatisfaction, as well as the modeating effect between the media and the'thin-ideal'internalization by three studies.In Study 1, 202 femal undergraduates are as the subjects, by questionnares, the current situations of body dissatisfaction are analyzed.In Study 2, 90 femal undergraduates are selected as the subjects whoes BMIs are all belong to the normal group, they are divided randomly into 3 groups. By single-factor between-subjects experimental design and the different media stimulus materials—thin model images, fat model images and scenery images—are as the independent variable, the immediate influence of media on the normal-BMI female body dissatisfaction is explored by analyzed the changes of body satisfaction between ex-experiment and post-experiment.In Study 3, 90 femal undergraduates are selected as the subjects whoes BMIs are all belong to the normal group, by questionnares method, the influences of media on their body dissatisfaction, and modeating effect of'thin-ideal'internalization are analyzed. The results of the three studies are as follows:(1) The body dissatisfaction of female undergraduates is prevalent. 77.2% of participants are not satisfied with their general appearance. The degree of each dissatisfaction factor from high to low is General, Short, Fat, and Appearance Dissatisfaction.(2) On the Fat Dissatisfaction factor, there are significant differences among grades, and between sciences and arts. Specifically, on the scores of fat dissatisfaction, the sophomore female students are remarkable higher than the junior female students, and the arts female students are remarkable higher than the sciences female students.(3) The immediate influence of media on the state of body dissatisfaction of normal-BMI female undergraduates has been found in the experiment. Specifically, female students who view the thin media images experience significantly greater body dissatisfaction levels than participants who view the fat media images and scenery images. Participants who view the fat media images report significantly lower body dissatisfaction than the other two groups. And the participants who view the scenery images show no significantly difference about their body dissatisfaction levels.(4) There is an influence of media on the trait of body dissatisfaction of normal-BMI female undergraduates. Media information is a significant predictor for the Fat Dissatisfaction.'Thin-ideal'internalization fully mediated the relationship between media and Fat Dissatisfaction.