Considerable research has demonstrated an association between exposure to thin and attractive figures on both traditional media and social media and women’s body dissatisfaction. However, it was unclear whether social media’s interactive features, notably the comment function, could play a role in influencing the extent to which thin-ideal images affect women. The study aimed to identify how different comments under Instagram’s thin-ideal images can influence women’s body image concerns by either mitigating or aggravating their self-objectification of attractive images. In this study, thin-ideal internalization and feminist beliefs were examined as moderators in the relationship between different comments under idealized images and body image concerns. A survey with self-report measures was conducted and the sample comprised female students from Boston University. The survey included a 2 (positive appearance comments: presence vs. absence) x 2 (reality check comments: presence vs. absence) between-subject experiment. Although the aggravating or mitigating effect of different comments with Instagram images was not statistically significant, people reported less body image disturbance after the exposure to images with reality check comments, compared to the level of the disturbance they reported before seeing the images. In contrast to the prediction, feminist beliefs and thin-ideal internalization did not moderate the effect of different comments on body image concerns. But the study found that women with low feminist beliefs experienced increasing body image disruption after viewing images with both positive and reality check comments. Moreover, thin-ideal internalization was positively associated with body image disturbance across all conditions. The findings of the study could inform women to be aware of social media exposure’s influences on how they objectify themselves toward idealized images; as well call upon authorities to establish a healthier standard of beauty and protect women from negative body image concerns. Finally, the study underscores the need for further research on refining the framework of social media comment function’s effect on users’ body image concerns, as well as exploring the role of feminism in the context of social media interactive features studies.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bu.edu/oai:open.bu.edu:2144/43725 |
| Date | 26 January 2022 |
| Creators | Cheng, Qinyu |
| Contributors | Su, Chris Chao |
| Source Sets | Boston University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis/Dissertation |
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