2021 Undergraduate Research Showcase
 

Document Type

Student Presentation

Presentation Date

4-23-2021

Faculty Sponsor

Dr. Mary Pritchard

Abstract

The present study has been developed to expand upon the work of Cohen et al. (2019) by exploring ways in which viewing different feeds or posts (body-positive posts, body-ideal posts, and neutral posts) on Instagram influence not only women's but men's body image and self-esteem. We hypothesize that body image and self-esteem will increase in both men and women after viewing body-positive and neutral content on Instagram. In addition, as no studies have examined the influence of body positive posts in men, we wanted to assess whether there might be gender differences in post type on body image and self-esteem. Participants were administered online surveys and were assigned to one of three viewing conditions depending on their gender: body positive, ideal body, or neutral. We found that neither self-esteem, nor body satisfaction, increased following any of the experimental conditions. In addition, there was no effect of gender on either self-esteem or body satisfaction. However, we did find a gender and experimental condition effect on participants' satisfaction with their weight and face. Future studies should attempt to replicate this study in a laboratory setting to control participants' attention to the experimental condition.

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