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The thin ideal in advertisement: An implicit cognition approach| old_uid | 16440 |
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| title | The thin ideal in advertisement: An implicit cognition approach |
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| start_date | 2018/10/25 |
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| schedule | 10h-12h |
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| online | no |
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| summary | In western societies, thinness is glorified as a paramount criterion of female beauty. Even photographs of professional models are routinely airbrushed in order to make them look thinner than they really are. In comparison to such pictures, a vast majority of women are confronted with failure to reach these unattainable standards of beauty. Consistent with this, a vast amount research shows that thin ideal exposure has a host of negative consequences for women, in terms of body dissatisfaction, low self-esteem, depressive symptoms, body-related anxiety, dysfunctional beliefs about food and eating, and eating disorder symptoms. These effects, documented mainly on self-reported dependent measures, are most frequently explained in terms of social comparison with the thin ideal. In this context, the question of the automaticity of social comparison is extremely important. Can women decide not to evaluate their own appearance with reference to these standards? Does thin ideal exposure affect implicit cognition? A first set of studies will be presented in support of the idea that appearance comparison with the thin ideal is an automatic process (unconscious and resource-independent), and that implicit cognition is affected by thin ideal exposure. If women tend to automatically compare their appearance to the thin ideal, then attempts to prevent social comparison by relying on explicit cognitive processes is unlikely to be efficient. Indeed, the disclaimer strategy, which consists of reminding individuals that a photograph has been airbrushed, appears to have no effect at best, or to have counterproductive effects at worst. A second set of studies on the efficiency of the disclaimer strategy on both implicit and explicit measures will be presented. Taken together, the relevant thus research strongly suggests that protective strategies based on implicit processes may be more efficient in attenuating the negative effects of thin ideal exposure than those relying on explicit cognition. Several recent studies converge to corroborate this hypothesis. To conclude, a third set of studies on the effect of a retraining procedure (akin to evaluative conditioning) on appearance-related outcomes will be presented. The reported findings will be discussed with regards to their theoretical and practical implications, and the necessity to develop the use of implicit measures in body image research. |
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| responsibles | Montalan |
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