Date of Award

Spring 5-2-2022

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Department

Psychology

First Advisor

Sarah Murnen

Abstract

While body dissatisfaction is a common concern among women in the US, current interventions only produce small to moderate improvements in body image (Alleva et al., 2015). As women’s normative body dissatisfaction remains unresolved, it is essential to continue to improve upon these interventions. There is little research investigating the effect of theoretical approach on the effectiveness of body image interventions. The current study aimed to empirically examine the effects of four different theoretical approaches to body image interventions for women: feminist, sociocultural, positive body image, and evolutionary perspectives, in comparison to a control. Participants were randomly assigned to one of the five conditions and watched the brief video interventions before responding to measures of state mood, state body concerns, and attitudes toward the videos. While analyses of covariance controlling for feminist identification did not yield significant effects of the theoretical approach on body concerns, they did yield significant changes in state mood and perceived helpfulness of the interventions between groups. Findings revealed that the positive body image perspective most consistently improved participant mood, the feminist perspective increased anger specifically for politically liberal participants, and the evolutionary perspective increased depressed mood and was perceived as the least helpful. Implications and future directions are discussed.

Rights Statement

All rights reserved. This copy is provided to the Kenyon Community solely for individual academic use. For any other use, please contact the copyright holder for permission.

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