Automatic evaluation of body-related words among young women: an experimental study

BMC Public Health

Research Article

Kaaren J Watts¹  Jacquelyn Cranney² 

[1] Psychosocial Research Group, Prince of Wales Hospital, 2031, Randwick, NSW, Australia;School of Psychology, University of New South Wales, 2052, Kensington, NSW, Australia;

关键词: Stimulus Onset Asynchrony;    Target Word;    Body Dissatisfaction;    Congruence Effect;    Incongruent Trial;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2458-10-308

 received in 2009-12-06, accepted in 2010-06-04,  发布年份 2010

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundPrevious research has demonstrated that exposure to images depicting the thin female ideal has negative effects on some females' levels of body dissatisfaction. Much of this research, however, has utilised relatively long stimulus exposure times; thereby focusing on effortful and conscious processing of body-related stimuli. Relatively little is known about the nature of females' affective responses to the textual components of body-related stimuli, especially when these stimuli are only briefly encountered. The primary aim of the current research was to determine whether young women automatically evaluate body-related words and whether these responses are associated with body image concerns, including self-reported levels of appearance schematicity, thin internalisation, body dissatisfaction, and dietary restraint.MethodsAn affective priming task was used to investigate whether females automatically evaluate body-related words, and whether this is associated with self-reported body image concerns. In a within-participants experimental design, the valence congruence of the prime and target pairs was manipulated. Participants selected body words as primes in Experiment 1 (N = 27), while normatively selected body words were primes in Experiment 2 (N = 50). Each prime was presented briefly, followed by a target word which participants judged as "good" or "bad". The dependent variable was response latency to the target.ResultsAutomatic evaluation was evident: responding to congruent pairs was faster than responding to incongruent pairs. Body image concerns were unrelated to automaticity.ConclusionsThe findings suggest that brief encounters with body words are likely to prompt automatic evaluation in all young women, and that this process proceeds unintentionally and efficiently, without conscious guidance.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© Watts and Cranney; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2010