Body use and reference group impact : With whom do we compare our bodies?

Fifty U.S. Olympic speedskating team members, 50 professional models, and 80 college students completed the Body Esteem Scale (BES: Franzoi & Shields, 1984) and indicated for each of the 35 BES items whether when evaluating themselves they most frequently use as a comparison standard same-sex pe...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Sex roles 2007-02, Vol.56 (3-4), p.205-214
Main Authors: FRANZOI, Stephen L, KLAIBER, Jeffrey R
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Anatomy & physiology
Athletes
Attitudes
Biological and medical sciences
Body Image
Body Weight
College Students
Elites
Evaluators
Fashion models
Females
Food Service
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Interpersonal Relationship
Males
Personal appearance
Psychology
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Reference Groups
Resistance (Psychology)
Self Concept
Self Esteem
Self Evaluation (Individuals)
Self image
Selfesteem
Social attribution, perception and cognition
Social Comparison
Social psychology
Social role. Sex role
Weight
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Fifty U.S. Olympic speedskating team members, 50 professional models, and 80 college students completed the Body Esteem Scale (BES: Franzoi & Shields, 1984) and indicated for each of the 35 BES items whether when evaluating themselves they most frequently use as a comparison standard same-sex people in general, same-sex professional models, or elite same-sex athletes. Consistent with social comparison theory that people seek similar others as comparison targets, college students were more likely than Olympic athletes or professional models to compare themselves to people in the general population, athletes were more likely than students or models to compare themselves to elite athletes, and models tended to be more likely than students or athletes to compare themselves to elite models. As hypothesized, college women more frequently than college men compared themselves to professional models when evaluating body aspects associated with weight concern and sexual attractiveness, and the more female skaters' compared themselves to models, the more their negative body attitudes associated with weight concern increased and the more interested they were in changing weight-related body aspects. Adapted from the source document.
ISSN:0360-0025
1573-2762
DOI:10.1007/s11199-006-9162-4