A word-stem completion task to assess implicit processing of appearance-related information

This paper reports on the development and utility of a new implicit measure of appearance-related information processing. A 20-item word-stem completion task was constructed, in which each word stem could be completed with either an appearance-related word or at least one non-appearance alternative....

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of psychosomatic research 2004-07, Vol.57 (1), p.73-78
Main Authors: Tiggemann, Marika, Hargreaves, Duane, Polivy, Janet, McFarlane, Traci
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
Affect
Appearance schemas
Beauty
Biological and medical sciences
Body image
Cognition
Cognitive processing
Exposure
Female
Humans
Ideal types
Implicit beliefs
Linguistics - methods
Male
Media
Medical sciences
Physical appearance
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychopathology. Psychiatry
Schemas
Social psychiatry. Ethnopsychiatry
Sociocultural environment
Vocabulary
Word stems
Word tests
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Summary:This paper reports on the development and utility of a new implicit measure of appearance-related information processing. A 20-item word-stem completion task was constructed, in which each word stem could be completed with either an appearance-related word or at least one non-appearance alternative. The measure was tested in four different experiments, most investigating the impact of acute exposure to media-portrayed thin idealised female images. Exposure to media images or other appearance-related material led to the generation of more appearance- or weight-related words in both female and male samples. It was concluded that the word-stem task has empirical utility as a simple, self-paced and sensitive outcome measure in experimental studies of media exposure. We conceptualise the word-stem task as a measure of appearance- and weight-schema activation.
ISSN:0022-3999
1879-1360
DOI:10.1016/S0022-3999(03)00565-8