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The effect of priming materialism on women's responses to thin-ideal media

journal contribution
posted on 2023-06-08, 10:22 authored by Eleni-Marina Ashikali, Helga Dittmar
Consumer culture is characterized by two prominent ideals: the 'body perfect' and the material 'good life'. Although the impact of these ideals has been investigated in separate research literatures, no previous research has examined whether materialism is linked to women's responses to thin-ideal media. Data from several studies confirm that the internalization of materialistic and body-ideal values is positively linked in women. After developing a prime for materialism (N = 50), we present an experimental examination (N = 155) of the effects of priming materialism on women's responses to thin-ideal media, using multiple outcome measures of state body dissatisfaction. Priming materialism affects women's body dissatisfaction after exposure to thin media models, but differently depending on the dimension of body image measured. The two main novel findings are that (1) priming materialism heightens the centrality of appearance to women's self-concept and (2) priming materialism influences the activation of bodyrelated self-discrepancies (BRSDs), particularly for highly materialistic women. Exposure to materialisticmedia has a clear influence on women's body image, with trait materialism a further vulnerability factor for negative exposure effects in response to idealized, thin media models.

History

Publication status

  • Published

Journal

British Journal of Social Psychology

ISSN

0144-6665

Publisher

Wiley

Issue

4

Volume

51

Page range

514-533

Department affiliated with

  • Psychology Publications

Full text available

  • No

Peer reviewed?

  • Yes

Legacy Posted Date

2012-02-20

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