Cultivation of Unrealistic Ideals of Beauty

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Cultivation of Unrealistic Ideals of Beauty
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Unrealistic Body Images

• If Barbie was human sized, she would stand 5 foot
  7 inches tall, weigh 110 pounds, have a 39 inch
  bust, 17 inch waist and 33 inch hips.
• A cat of average size has a waist size of around
  15.5 inches.

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Women in the Reel World v. Real World
Average American Woman 54 140lb
Average Model 510 110 120lb
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Cultivation Theory

• People who watch a lot of television tend to see
  the real world in terms of the images, values,
  portrayals and ideologies that emerge through the
  lens of television.
• Cultivation is not unidirectional but more like a
  gravitational pull depending on message,
  audience, and context.
• Cultivation differential
• The margin of difference in conceptions of
  reality between light and heavy viewers, assuming
  all other demographic variables are equivalent.
• Mainstreaming
• dominant structure of attitudes beliefs values
  and practices
• Television is/was the primary channel of the
  mainstream of American culture
• Heavy viewing may override differences in
  perspectives and behavior that ordinarily stem
  from other factors and influences.
• How?
• Availability (cognitive shortcut info that is
  more readily available in mind, is more likely to
  be used)
• People forget the source of information (sleeper
  effect).
• Cultivation research during an era in television
  history dominated by a few channels, today more
  media choices, interactivity viewer control.

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Field, Cheung, Wolf, Herzog, Gortmaker Colditz,
1999

• Pictures in magazines had a strong impact on
  girls' perceptions of their weight and shape.
• Of the girls, 69 reported that magazine pictures
  influence their idea of the perfect body shape,
  and 47 reported wanting to lose weight because
  of magazine pictures.

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Paxton, Wertheim, Gibbons, Szmukler, Hillier,
Petrovich, 1991

• In a sample of male and female high school
  students, two-thirds of boys and girls believed
  that being thinner would have an impact on their
  lives. The majority of girls believed that this
  impact would be positive, while the majority of
  the boys believed that the impact would be
  negative.
• Girls had higher body dissatisfaction scores than
  boys on all measures.
• Girls reported magazines as their primary source
  of information regarding diet and health, whereas
  boys reported their primary source to be parents,
  followed by two other categories before
  mentioning magazines.

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Becker and Burwell, 1999

• IN FIJI, gaining weight used to be a sign of good
  health and attractiveness.
• Since Western television arrived in 1995, Harvard
  researchers have discovered a new trend of
  bulimia, anorexia, and Western-style dieting
  among adolescent Fijian girls.
• girls who watched television three or more nights
  a week were 50 more likely to say they were "too
  big or fat," and 30 likelier to diet.
• In a 1998 survey, 15 of girls said they had
  tried to control their weight by vomiting.
• Among the most popular programs are "Melrose
  Place," "Beverly Hills, 90210," and "Seinfeld."

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Obsession with Thinness

• over 90 of patients with anorexia nervosa or
  bulimia nervosa are women (American Psychiatric
  Association, 1994)
• The diet industry is estimated at 40 billion and
  growing.

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The number of plastic surgery patients has
steadily increased 153 from 1992-1998. The
overwhelming majority of patients (91) is female
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Focus on Womens Appearance

• Content Analysis of Women Media (Signorelli,
  1997)
• 58 of female characters in movies had comments
  made about their looks, as did 28 in television
  shows and 26 of the female models in the
  accompanying commercials.
• Mens' and boys' appearance is talked about
  significantly less in all three media a quarter
  (24) of male characters in the movies, 10 7,
  respectively, in television shows and
  commercials.
• 37 of articles in leading teen girl magazines
  included a focus on appearance - most of the
  advertisements (50) used an appeal to beauty to
  sell their products.
• Commercials aimed at female viewers that ran
  during television shows most often watched by
  teen girls frequently used beauty as a product
  appeal (56 of commercials).
• This is true of just 3 of television commercials
  aimed at men.

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Focus on Womens Appearance

• Women earn more money than men in only two job
  categories modeling and prostitution (Wolf,
  1992).

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Contrast Effect
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Contrast Effect in Real Life
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Influence of popular erotica on judgments of
strangers and mate

• All participants were married or in a live-in
  relationship, randomly assigned to 3 conditions
• Females viewed 16 slides from Playgirl
• Males viewed 16 slides from Playboy Penthouse.
• Control viewed 16 slides of abstract art.
• Subjects asked to rate aesthetic appeal of the
  slides, and afterwards to rate their satisfaction
  with current relationship.

Kenrick, D.T., Gutierres, S.E., Goldberg, L.L.,
(1989). Influence of popular erotica on judgments
of strangers and mates. Journal of Experimental
Social Psychology , 25 (2), 159-167.
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Influence of popular erotica on judgments of
partners sexual attractiveness
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Influence of popular erotica on judgments of love
for partner
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Readings for Next Class

• Davies, P., Spencer, S., Quinn, D.,
  Gerhardstein, R. (2002). Consuming images How
  television commercials that elicit stereotype
  threat can restrain women academically and
  professionally. Personality and Social Psychology
  Bulletin , 28 , 1615-1628.
• Thompson, Teresa L. and Zebrinos, Eugenia.
  (1997). Television Cartoons Do Children Notice
  It's a Boy's World. Sex Roles A Journal of
  Research 37 415 - 428.