A study of body satisfaction, internalization of media messages, and spiritual well being in college males

Problem. The first problem of this study was to determine the relationship between the measures of body satisfaction and internalization of media messages of attractiveness. The second problem of this study was to determine the relationship between the measures of body satisfaction and spiritual well being. The third problem of this study was to determine the association of the rankings on four specified variables between two groups of male students. Group One consists of males scoring high on the Spiritual Well Being Scale, and Group Two consists of males scoring low on the Spiritual Well Being Scale.1 The specified variables are (1) type of TV programs watched, (2) type of magazines read, (3) activity involvement, and (4) participation in worship events. The fourth problem of the study was to determine the difference between Christians and non-Christians in the ranking of the following specified variables: type of TV programs watched, type of magazines read, activity involvement, and participation in worship events.;Procedures. Two hundred and eighty seven participants from state and private universities completed the survey packet containing a demographics questionnaire, Drive for Muscularity Scale, Sociocultural Attitudes Towards Appearance Questionnaire, and Spiritual Well Being Scale. The Pearson's r, Kendall's tau b, and Wilcoxon W were employed to investigate the problems of the study.;Findings and Results. The variables examined were body image satisfaction, internalization of media messages, and spiritual well being. Based on the results, the higher the score on the Drive for Muscularity Scale, the higher the score on the Sociocultural Attitudes Towards Appearance Questionnaire. The more the participants were dissatisfied with their bodies, the more pressure they felt from mass media to change their appearance or shape. The second hypothesis explored the role of spiritual well being and body image satisfaction. The findings were that spiritual well being was positively correlated with body image satisfaction. All of these variables were significant at the 0.01 level. The rankings of the variables genre of television watched, types of magazines read, and activity involvement indicate no differences between Christians and non-Christians in the ranking of the variables.;1According to Ellison and Paloutzian, authors of the Spiritual Well Being Scale, a score within the range of 100-120 means high spiritual well being, and a score in the range of 20-40 is low spiritual well being.