The goal of this research is to better understand the gap between the consumer's actual self image versus their perceived ideal image; in which, could help an online retail company to respond more effectively and provide a better service to its target customer with an added goal of reducing the rate of returns. A two-phased mixed methods approach was applied to this research to test for participants perceived and actual ideas of themselves, as well as their attitudes towards ideals. The first phase consisted of manual measurements taken and recorded, following a semi-structured interviewed. The second phase consisted of a 3D scan (digital measurements) taken and recorded followed by a four question survey comprising of three Likert questions, and one open ended question, concluding with researcher observations noted. The results showed that while the participants were mostly congruent with regards to size, they were mostly incongruent with regards to shape, and had zero congruence between the actual and the ideal self. All participants also experienced varying levels of fit issues with several areas mentioned, though pants/bottoms being the number one fit struggle. All participants expressed interested in the 3D scanning technology, felt it was easy to use, but there was a lack of continuity between participant self-reported survey answers, and their verbal answers as well as research observations.

Compte tenu de l’augmentation exponentielle du nombre de personnes âgées de 60 ans et plus, l’identification des facteurs associés aux risques de développer des maladies chroniques et à la qualité de vie lors de l’avancée en âge constituent un enjeu de santé publique majeur. Une ligne de recherche croissante témoigne des implications de l’âge subjectif, i.e., l’âge que se donnent les individus, pour l’évolution du fonctionnement global des individus lors du processus de vieillissement ainsi que les risques de mortalité. Par conséquent, il apparaît primordial d’identifier les facteurs contribuant à la tendance des individus à se sentir plus jeune ou plus âgé que leur âge réel, i.e., un biais de rajeunissement ou de vieillissement. Bien que cette question ait suscité de nombreuses recherches, ce travail doctoral avait pour objectif d’enrichir les connaissances actuelles en approfondissant la contribution des facteurs dispositionnels, cognitifs et environnementaux sur l’âge subjectif. À l’aide d’un programme de recherche comprenant cinq études, ce travail a mis en évidence le rôle plus marqué de la personnalité dans l’âge subjectif lors de l’avancée en âge (étude 1), alors que le fonctionnement cognitif n’est pas reflété dans cette dimension (étude 2), ce résultat étant complété par l’observation selon laquelle les personnes âgées atteintes de la maladie d’Alzheimer se rajeunissent autant que les personnes âgées exemptes de pathologies sévères (étude 3). De plus, notre travail révèle que les processus de comparaison sociale favorable, générant un contraste avec les pairs du même âge, induisent une augmentation du biais de rajeunissement lorsqu’ils concernent le domaine physique mais qu’ils sont inopérants dans le domaine cognitif (étude 4), tandis que l’assimilation aux pairs du même âge, illustrée par l’augmentation de l’identification au groupe d’âge, ne génère pas de réduction du biais de rajeunissement dans le domaine physique (étude 5). Ainsi, ce travail doctoral contribue à la littérature existante en soulignant que l’âge subjectif est en partie le reflet de facteurs psychologiques et environnementaux. / Given the exponential increase in the number of people aged 60 and more, the identification of the factors associated with the reduction of chronic disease risk and the maintenance of quality of life with advancing age is a major public health concern. Evidence accumulates about the implications of subjective age, i.e., how old a person perceives him-/herself, for older individual’s global functioning and mortality risk. Therefore, it appears crucial to identify the factors contributing to individuals’ tendency to feel younger or older than their chronological age, i.e., a younger or older subjective age. Although this question has stimulated a great deal of research, the present doctoral dissertation aimed to expand existing knowledge on the contribution of dispositional, cognitive and environmental factors on subjective age. Building upon a five studies research program, this work revealed a stronger role of personality on subjective age with advancing age (study 1), whereas cognitive functioning is not reflected in this dimension (study 2), this result being completed by the finding of a younger subjective age among Alzheimer disease patients comparable to healthy older adults (study 3). In addition, this research reveals that downward social comparison, leading to a contrast with same-aged peers, induces an increased younger subjective age when it occurs in the physical domain but is ineffective in the cognitive domain (study 4), whereas the assimilation to same-aged peers, illustrated by increase of age-group identification, do not translate into a reduced younger subjective age in the physical domain (study 5). Thus, this doctoral dissertation contributes to existing literature and revealed that subjective age reflects in part psychological and environmental factors.

Submitted by Liliane Furtado (lilianempf@gmail.com) on 2017-01-16T14:52:37Z No. of bitstreams: 1 TESE_COMPLETA_POS DEFESA.pdf: 1498726 bytes, checksum: f3c0d1c02f06ad3ad75265249c3de234 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by ÁUREA CORRÊA DA FONSECA CORRÊA DA FONSECA (aurea.fonseca@fgv.br) on 2017-01-17T13:12:04Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 TESE_COMPLETA_POS DEFESA.pdf: 1498726 bytes, checksum: f3c0d1c02f06ad3ad75265249c3de234 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-01-25T13:15:11Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 TESE_COMPLETA_POS DEFESA.pdf: 1498726 bytes, checksum: f3c0d1c02f06ad3ad75265249c3de234 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-12-05 / Leader–member exchange (LMX) theory focuses on the quality of the member’s exchange relationship with the leader. A fundamental tenet of LMX theory is that leaders develop different quality relationships with members in their teams. Research on LMX has almost exclusively focuses on LMX relationships as independent dyads within work groups. However, LMX relationship cannot be fully understood in isolation from the team contexts that shape it. As a result, LMX research has been criticized for failing to consider the role of the social context in the development of members’ perceptions of LMX. This deficiency prompted researchers to call for more research on LMX within the context of teams. Thus, this dissertation answer this call by considering LMX within the team context by exploring theoretical approaches that take into account the social context in which LMX is embedded. Drawing on LMX theory, social comparison theory and social network approach, I address this question through two empirical and independent papers aimed to consider LMX as systems of interdependent dyadic relationships, rather than independent dyads. Overall, the findings of this dissertation corroborate prior arguments that LMX theory represents not only a dyadic phenomenon, but also captures a complex multilevel phenomenon beyond the dyadic relationship. The contributions of these findings are discussed.

Stereotypa bilder och ideal om vad som är manligt och kvinnligt syns idag tydligt i samhället även inom idrottssammanhang. Idrott har historiskt sett utmanat roller för vad som är manligt respektive kvinnligt. För kvinnor har utövandet av idrott inte alltid varit en självklarhet. Problem kan uppstå när det för kvinnor finns en motstridig bild mellan samhällsnormer och den skapade idrottskroppen. Syftet med denna fenomenologisk studie är att undersöka elitidrottande kvinnors kroppsuppfattning i relation till idrotten och samhällets kroppsideal. Det teoretiska ramverket består av symbolisk interaktionism med fokus på begreppet generaliserade andre. Även teorin sociala jämförelser och begreppen genus och kroppsuppfattning. Studien använder en kvalitativ ansats där det empiriska materialet består av tio semistrukturerade intervjuer. Urvalet bestod av elitidrottande kvinnor i åldrarna 18-30 år, aktiva inom icke-estetiska idrotter. Resultatet visar att idrott och gemenskapen den utgör uppfattas bidra till en mer positiv kroppsuppfattning hos elitidrottande kvinnor. Kroppens funktion och prestation inom idrotten gör att den negativa påverkan yttre faktorer kan ha på kroppsuppfattning får mindre utrymme. Istället väger idrottens krav på kroppen tyngre än samhällets kroppsideal, vilket bidrog till en mer positiv kroppsuppfattning. / Stereotype images and ideals of masculinity and femininity are visible in today´s society, including sports. Sport has historically challenged the roles of what is masculine and feminine and women haven´t always been able to take the practice of sport for granted. A problem can arise when the social norms contradict the psychical body women create in sport. The purpose of this phenomenological study is to explore body perception of elite sportswomen in relation to sport demands and social body ideal. The theoretical framework consists of symbolic interactionism, focusing on the concept of generalized others and furthermore, the theory of social comparison and the concepts of gender and body perception. The study uses a qualitative approach where the empirical material consists of ten semi-structured interviews. The sample consists of elite sportswomen in the age group 18-30 years, all active in aesthetic sports. The result shows that sport and its positive communion is perceived to contribute to a positive body perception among elite sportswomen. Function of the body and its performance is the most important factor and it can decrease the negative impact external factors may have on body perception. Physical requirements are of greater importance than the body ideal. The result of this study is that all women found it common that their sport was of greater importance than body ideals, which contributed to a positive body perception.

The aim of this study is to examine if social media has a negative impact on how womenperceive their own body image. The study was conducted by a quantitative survey usingquestionnaires to examine the various factors that affect the perceived body image. Such ashow women socially compare themselves with others or how satisfied they are with theirbody depending on how much time they spend on social media. We will also investigate ifwomen’s perceived body image is consistent with the their actual body based upon theirBMI. The sample for the study consisted of 159 women who are members of a specificFacebook group. The material was analyzed with support from Festinger’s theory of socialcomparison and Cooley’s glass-self theory among others. The results show that high use ofsocial media affects women’s satisfaction with how they look negatively compared withthose who use social media to a low degree. It also shows that women who spend a lot oftime on social media tend to compare themselves with other more widely and tend to beunhappier with their body. On the other hand, we could not see any correlation between theuse of social media and women’s perception of their actual body. / Syftet med studien är att undersöka om sociala medier har en negativ påverkan på hurkvinnor uppfattar sin egen kroppsbild. Studien genomfördes av en kvantitativ undersökningmed hjälp av enkäter för att undersöka de olika faktorerna som påverkar den uppfattadekroppsbilden. Såsom hur kvinnor jämför sig med andra eller hur nöjda de är med sin kroppberoende på hur mycket tid de spenderar på sociala medier. Vi kommer likaså undersöka omkvinnors uppfattade kroppsbild överensstämmer med deras faktiska kropp baserat på derasBMI. Urvalet för studien bestod av 159 kvinnor som är medlemmar i facebookgruppen Pinkroom. Materialet analyserades med bland annat stöd av Festingers teori om social jämförelseoch Cooleys teori om spegeljaget. Resultaten visar att vid hög användning av sociala medierpåverkas kvinnornas tillfredsställelse med kroppen i jämförelse med dem som användersociala medier i liten utsträckning. Det visar också att kvinnor som spenderar mycket tid påsociala medier tenderar att jämföra sig med andra i större utsträckning och att dem tenderaratt vara mer missnöjda med sin kropp.

L’objectif de cette thèse est de présenter quatre essais en économie comportementale et expérimentale sur prise de décision dans le risque et l’ambiguïté. Le premier essai présente une synthèse et un point de vue sur la représentativité des résultats expérimentaux en matière de préférences : préférences sociales et préférences concernant le risque et le temps dans les pays développés ainsi que dans les pays en voie de développement. Le deuxième essai explore expérimentalement l’effet du risque et de l’ambiguïté sur le comportement de recherche d’emploi en horizon infini. Les résultats montrent qu’en risque et ambiguïté, les salaires de réservation sont inférieurs aux valeurs théoriques et diminuent au cours du processus de recherche. De même, les sujets se comportent comme des agents neutre à l’ambiguïté. Le troisième et quatrième essai étudient l’effet du contexte social et la corrélation des paiements sur les attitudes face au risque et à l’ambiguïté respectivement dans le domaine de gain, perte et le domaine mixte. Les résultats montrent que l’introduction du contexte social a un effet significatif sur les attitudes face au risque dans les trois domaines. Néanmoins, la corrélation des risques a un effet sur les attitudes face au risque seulement dans le domaine mixte. Les attitudes face à l’ambiguïté varient selon le domaine. De même, la corrélation des paiements diminuent l’aversion à l’ambiguïté. / The objective of this thesis is to present four essays in behavioral and experimental economics on decision-making under risk and ambiguity. The first essay presents a synthesis and a point of view on the representativeness of experimental results regarding individual preferences: social preferences and risk and time preferences, in developed countries as well as in developing countries. The second essay explores experimentally the effect of risk and ambiguity on job search behavior in an infinite horizon. The results show that in risk and ambiguity, reservation wages are lower than the theoretical values and decrease during the search process. Similarly, subjects behave as ambiguity neutral agents. The third and fourth essay examine the effect of the social context and the correlation of payments on attitudes towards risk and ambiguity respectively in gain, loss and mixed domain. The results show that the introduction of the social context has a significant effect on attitudes towards risk in all three domains. Nevertheless, the correlation of risks has an effect on risk attitudes only in the mixed domain. As for ambiguity, ambiguity attitudes vary across domains. The correlation of payments decreases ambiguity aversion.

As individuals develop, it is natural to reference social situations to learn about the self. Even as adults, some learning about the self comes from interactions with others. However, when adults consistently allow others to define their sense of self, their focus may shift away from connection and intimacy toward external factors. No studies have examined how allowing others to define the sense of self is associated with intimacy and satisfaction in relationships. Using structural equation modeling, this study examined whether allowing others to define the self is associated with a decrease in emotional intimacy, relational satisfaction, and sexual satisfaction and whether this relationship might be mediated by sense of self. I used a sample (n = 421) of U.S. adults in committed sexual relationships. Three common ways of allowing others to define the self—emotional fusion, externalized self-perception, and social comparison—were considered relative to the relational outcomes. Gender differences in the model were also considered. Results showed a negative association between all three ways of allowing others to define the self and all three relational outcomes for men, and negative associations between emotional fusion and externalized self-perception and all three relational outcomes for women. These associations were mediated by sense of self such that those who reported allowing others to define the self, also reported a weaker sense of self. Having a strong sense of self was positively associated with emotional intimacy, relationship satisfaction, and sexual satisfaction. This indicates that looking to outside sources to define the self may hinder intimacy and satisfaction in relationships. Further implications are discussed.

Over the last 15 years there has been a dynamic shift within the fitness industry, particularly for women. For decades, women were expected to participate in aerobic-based workouts and maintain a thin figure. This thin ideal has been harmful to women and contributed to low levels of self-esteem. CrossFit diverges from aerobics by encouraging strength training and teaching women that workouts can be functional, and beauty does not only lie in one’s aesthetics. The emergence and growth of CrossFit is shifting fitness-related gender norms and expectations, and possibly contributing to higher levels of self-esteem in women. This shift has become more apparent and visible though the growth of social networking sites like Instagram. Since Instagram is a photo- and video-based platform, there are significant opportunities for social comparison. Therefore, researchers should attempt to better understand how women in CrossFit engage with Instagram, and more specifically, how social comparison mediates self-esteem. This research gained insight into CrossFit—a fitness program dominating worldwide and challenging harmful social norms for women within the fitness industry—by examining how women CrossFitters engage in social comparison on Instagram. This research fills a much-needed gap because there is a lack of research on women CrossFitters, Instagram, and social comparison. The researcher administered a survey consisting of seven scales and 72 questions throughout the greater Sacramento area measuring social comparison habits, self-esteem, superiority, and Instagram use among women CrossFitters. The researcher used correlation analysis to answer the proposed hypotheses. Although the collected data did not fully support all hypotheses, the research produced significant results and implications that contribute to a better understanding of the current state of the fitness industry, Women CrossFitters’ use of Instagram, and social comparison.

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Is people’s appreciation for their bodies lower when they engage in more appearance comparison online and is this relation differs as a function of age? Previous research shows that body appreciation is important for people’s well-being and frequent appearance comparison is seen to be related to lower well-being. Research also shows age differences in body appreciation and the tendency to engage in comparison with others. There is a lack of studies looking at body appreciation that includes older people and men. Online social comparison has only been measured using narrow definitions of comparative behaviors. The current study aims to assess if lower body appreciation is seen for people who compare themselves more online and if this is moderated by age. An online survey was distributed to Swedish citizens over the age of 16. The survey asked about people’s body appreciation and the different online appearance-comparison behaviors they perform. A moderation analysis was conducted and showed that lower body appreciation is related to higher engagement in appearance comparison online and this relation was stronger for older people. This study expands the knowledge about body appreciation with a sample that is more representative of the Swedish population. It also expands the knowledge of how body appreciation is related to online social comparison. People generally seem to experience lower appreciation for their bodies when they engage in more online appearance comparison and the relationship is stronger for older people. / Är personers uppskattning för deras kropp lägre när de jämför sitt utseende mer med andra online och ifall relation ändras som en funktion av ålder? Tidigare forskning har visat att kroppsuppskattning är viktigt för personers välmående och frekventa jämförelser med andra har visats vara relaterade till ett försämrat välmående. Forskning har också visat att det finns åldersskillnader i både kroppsuppskattning och ens tendens att jämföra sig med andra. Det finns lite forskning som tittar på kroppsuppskattning bland äldre personer och män. Personers utseende-jämförelse online har tidigare enbart blivit mätt med smala mått som tittar på enstaka jämförelsebeteenden. Vår studie siktar på att undersöka om personer har lägre kroppsuppskattning när de jämför sitt utseende med andra oftare online och om den här relationen modereras av ålder. En online-enkät delades ut med frågor gällande kroppsuppskattning och frågor gällande olika typer av jämförelsebeteenden folk kan utföra online. Enkäten delades ut till svenska medborgare över 16 års ålder. En moderationsanalys genomfördes och visade att kroppsuppskattning var lägre bland personer som jämförde sin kropp oftare online och relationen var som starkast för äldre personer. Den här studien tillför mer kunskap om kroppsuppskattning med ett urval som är mer representativt för Sveriges befolkning. Studien tillför mer kunskap kring kopplingen mellan kroppsuppskattning och utseende-jämförelser online. Generellt så uppskattar folk sin kropp mindre när de ofta jämför sitt utseende med andra online och relationen var starkast för äldre personer.