BODY IMAGE AND FIRST IMPRESSIONS 1

Transcription

1 BODY IMAGE AND FIRST IMPRESSIONS 1

2 BODY IMAGE AND FIRST IMPRESSIONS 2 Abstract Research has been done separately in the past on the following three topics: Attraction biases, first impressions, and body image, but it never have they been analyzed together in one study to look significant interactions. All of our participants were undergraduates from the University of Evansville. Out of the sixty participants (48 females), their ages ranged from There was no real diversity within the ethnicity of our participants (90% caucasian). While we did not find any significant interactions in our study with body image, we could potentially find significant results if we were to improve some of our survey questions and make the photos we presented more consistent and had equal value. This study may be a decent pilot study for other researchers to take from and conduct their own original research and produce more significant results, by utilizing and correcting the mistakes that we made.

3 BODY IMAGE AND FIRST IMPRESSIONS 3 Self Perception, Attraction Biases and Their Affect on First Impressions Attraction biases, first impressions, a person s self image are relevant in everyday life, and as a result aid a person in the way the navigate the world around them. Research has not been done on the specific area we were interested in studying. Primarily we wanted to see how the attractiveness or unattractiveness of an individual could affect a person s own self image. Knowing that attraction biases are relevant during first encounters, we knew that we also needed to find photos of individuals who are not known in the community. Previous research has been conducted on the attractiveness of an individual and how it impacts first impressions they make (Rule & Ambady, 2010). In our study, we would like to measure participants on their own perceived body image and evaluate how it affects their perception of others attractiveness. Attraction Biases Attraction Biases are relevant during initial impressions and often people hold on to their first impression no matter if they are correct or not. Horton (2003) researched individuals attractiveness and how they were perceived by others. Individuals ranked a photo on range of items. The items assessed the target photo s perceived likeability, personality dimensions, sociability, and integrity. Participants also rated themselves on a self and self ideal assessment. Horton s results affirmed the implicit personality theory; individuals prefer people who are more attractive and they associated more positive personality traits with them as well. Similarly, he also found that people preferred individuals who are similar to themselves. First Impressions

4 BODY IMAGE AND FIRST IMPRESSIONS 4 Researchers Rule and Ambady (2010) conducted a study in which they asked American individuals to rate the faces of political candidates in Canada. On a 1 7 likert scale, they were asked to rate each face with the following traits: competence, dominance, facial maturity, likeability, and trustworthiness. The results indicated that the more power a candidate seemed to have in the photos were more likely to be elected, while the more warmth a candidate showed predicted that the candidate would not be elected. First impressions lead individuals to give others attributes that may or may not be accurate (Rule & Ambady, 2010). Furthermore, they admitted that even if first impressions are not accurate, they will still have effects on the impression of the individual. Although research shows that people are biased towards physically attractive others, no research has explored whether self image affects biases favoring physically attractive others. This will contribute to the psychological and sociological communities, which are interested in self perception and the perception of others by providing new information about attraction biases and first impressions. Next, we review research exploring the effects of body image, which will guide our theoretically supported hypotheses. Body Image Body image has been previously studied by multiple researchers (Bissel & Rask, 2010; Kenealy et al., 1991; Oikawa et al., 2012 Owen & Spencer, 2013). Bissel and Rask (2010) found that women who viewed photos of healthy weight women had healthier body images, than women who viewed unhealthy weight women in a follow up experiment. Similarly, Owens and Spencer (2013) found that viewing individuals with a healthy body weight predicts increased body satisfaction. In addition, women who had higher anxiety felt less satisfied with their body

5 BODY IMAGE AND FIRST IMPRESSIONS 5 when shown thin models than individuals who had less anxiety. Yet, this study only included women participants and so it is unclear whether men would react similarly. Another group of researchers found a tripartite correlation between individuals with high anxiety, depression, and low self esteem, but they are not sure how this comorbidity relates, but there does seem to be some relation, which needs to be further investigated ( Sowisl & Orth, 2013). Researchers Tennen and Herzberger (1987) and found the link between depression and self esteem as well. Clearly there is an coupled interaction between these psychological concepts that is an important phenomenon that should be studied further (Tennen & Herzberger, 1987). Self Esteem and Others Kenealy studied the association between perception of physical attractiveness and self esteem in order to clarify the relationship between self esteem and self versus others perception of attractiveness (Kenealy et al., 1991). Kenealy was able to group individuals according to how they rated themselves into three groups, those who had low, average, or high self esteem based on how they rated themselves on a self perception scale. Kenealy and her associates discovered that over raters had high self esteem, while individuals with that were under raters had a low self esteem. Oikawa et al. (2012) created a study in which they utilized an fmri to examine both the neural correlates of self face evaluation using the contrast effect and a neural relationship between self face evaluation and self esteem (Oikawa et al., 2012). There was no relationship between how they believe others perceived their own physical attractiveness and participants own self esteem (Oikawa et al., 2012). In another study Dijkastra and Barelds (2011) actually found that relationship that Oikawa (2012) could not find. Dijkastra and Berelds found that there is a relationship between how participants own

6 BODY IMAGE AND FIRST IMPRESSIONS 6 self esteem can directly impact how they think others perceive them, which may or may not be true. Specifically, they researched the meta perceptions of attractiveness and their own body image. Four different items were assessed, each woman's BMI (body mass index), their own body image based on 9 items identified on a likert scale, each woman s general self esteem, and meta perceptions of attractiveness. Dijkastra and Barelds found that women thought that their partner or significant other found them the most attractive. Family members were ranked next, then strangers, and lastly women ranked themselves least attractive. They found that BMI was strongly correlated with how attractive each woman ranked herself. Women with a lower BMI generally ranked themselves as more attractive with less body discrepancies (Dijkastra & Barelds, 2010). Social Comparisons There have also been studies based on body image that are set in a social setting (Kowner, 1995). By incorporating this study in a social setting, Kowner was able to facilitate social comparisons based on attractiveness. Kowner studied attractiveness and its effects on how a person chooses his or her partner. Physical appearance, including attractiveness, is a primary dimension in social comparisons (Kowner, 1995). In Kowner s study, he manipulated whether participants were told that they were or were not physically attractive, to see if it had a direct effect on a person s choice in partner or competitor. Participants chose partners that had similar ratings of attractiveness. Therefore, it is possible that one s body image might predict whether or not they are biased toward physically attractive people. We predicted that, those with a negative body image might have less of a bias in favor of physically attractive people an effect in line with Kowner s study showing that people prefer those of similar levels of attractiveness. In

7 BODY IMAGE AND FIRST IMPRESSIONS 7 contrast, people with positive body images might have more negative biases against those who are physically unattractive, because they may prefer those who they perceive as similar to themselves (attractive people). Method Participants Participants were 60 undergraduate students who attended the University of Evansville. They were recruited three different ways, a bulletin board where our study information was posted, going around to different classes around campus and recruiting different people, and simply word of mouth. All participants were at least 18 years old or older, ranging between 18 and 22 years of age. Participants were 80% female, 90% Caucasian, 1.7% African American, 1.7% Hispanic, 5% Asian. Materials Job Application. A formal application was provided to each participant. The job application was the same in all experiments. The applicant s name was Samantha Winn, used a female as the job applicant because we felt that it would provoke the most honesty from both females and males. The applicant had a business degree from the University of Evansville. The applicant had average experience in previous employment, and diverse settings. Such as, working at a dental office as a receptionist, and an insurance company as a receptionist. The applicant also attended a leadership academy. The applicant was applying for a position as public relations specialist. See appendix A for the complete resume. Picture. Knowing that attraction biases are relevant during first encounters, we knew that we also needed to find photos of individuals who are not known in the community. The woman

8 BODY IMAGE AND FIRST IMPRESSIONS 8 was supposed to represent the Samantha Winn, the job applicant. There were 20 photos in total, 10 of them were of attractive women and the remaining 10 photos were of unattractive women. Participants were randomly assigned to any of the photos. The photos were the most professional looking headshots for the attractive and unattractive photos that were available to us. All of the photos were racially diverse, including: caucasians with blonde hair, red hair, and dark hair, African Americans, Hispanics, and Asians. See appendix B for all of the photos. Job Applicant Assessment. We assessed the participants reactions to the job applicant by asking them a series of questions. These questions in this section all had a likert scale from, 0 ( Not likely at all ) to 4 ( Completely likely ) and participants responded to the following questions: How likely is this person to succeed at the given job? How likely is this person to get along with fellow co workers? How likely is this person to positively impact the workplace? How likely are you to hire this person for the job? Higher scores on the scale indicated that they felt the individual was well suited for the job position. Manipulation Check. As a manipulation check, participants were asked, How physically attractive did you find the person in the photo that you viewed just before you read the resume? and asked to indicate on a 5 point likert scale from 0 ( Not Attractive At All ) to 4 ( Very Attractive ). Demographics. We assessed participants age, gender, GPA, major, and religion. We also assessed political orientation by asking participants to rate themselves on a scale ranging from 1 ( extremely liberal ) to 7 ( extremely conservative ) in response to the question, When it comes to politics, how liberal or conservative are you? Participants were asked to circle all

9 BODY IMAGE AND FIRST IMPRESSIONS 9 religions that applied, the list included all of the following, Fundamentalist Christian, Christian, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Agnostic, Atheist, and other. Body Image Survey. Participants were asked to a series of questions to evaluate four different aspects: knowledge, perceived pressure, thin ideal internalization, and athletic ideal internalization. These questions in this section are from Sociocultural Attitudes Towards Appearance Questionnaire 3 (Thompson et al., 2004). The participants were asked to answer on a likert scale from 1 ( Definitely Disagree ) to 5 ( Definitely Agree ). These questions specifically asked how different sects of society influenced their self image, these included magazines, television, celebrities, athletes, and even music videos. A few examples of those questions are: I compare my appearance to the appearance of TV and movie stars. I've felt pressure from TV or magazines to exercise. Famous people are an important source of information about fashion and "being attractive." Self Discrepancy Measurement. Participants were also given a survey to evaluate their level of self discrepancy (Higgins et al., 1985). This survey instructed the individuals to list 10 attributes in each of the following categories: Actual self, Ideal self, and Ought self. Actual self was described as, Your beliefs concerning the attributes you think you actually possess. Ideal self was described as, Your beliefs concerning the attributes you would like ideally to possess; your ultimate goals for yourself. And lastly, Ought self was described as, Your beliefs concerning the attributes you believe you should or ought to possess; your normative rules or prescriptions for yourself. Procedures

10 BODY IMAGE AND FIRST IMPRESSIONS 10 Participants who were in certain psychology classes were rewarded with 1 extra credit point, all other participants were not rewarded, but were thanked and had the intrinsic reward of knowing that they helped the scientific community. Prior to participation, all participants were informed that their participation was anonymous and voluntary. In our informed consent document, participants were be told that some questions might make them feel uncomfortable, but that the study poses little risk to them. They were also be told to stop at any time if they felt uncomfortable and that they would still receive extra credit if they decided to withdraw from the study and not complete the survey, thus ensuring participants would not be coerced to participate. They were also be told that their professor would offer other means of earning extra credit besides participation in our research. After participants agreed to participate, they were instructed complete the survey and then thanked for their participation. Our manipulation was to randomly assign our participants to receive either one of the ten attractive photos or one of the ten unattractive photos. After having received the photo they were presented with a resume identical to everyone else s no matter the attractiveness of the photo. Next, they were be asked to complete a survey about the person they just viewed. They then participated in an ostensibly unrelated survey, which included a questionnaire and survey that tested their own body image and self esteem. Lastly, as a manipulation check, they were asked how attractive they found the applicant. After all measures were completed, participants were debriefed and thanked for their participation. Individual participation lasted approximately 20 minutes, and data collection lasted approximately 3 weeks. All procedures and materials were approved by our university s Institutional Review Board.

11 BODY IMAGE AND FIRST IMPRESSIONS 11 Results Significant results: Next we explored the effects of condition and body image on perceptions of whether the candidate would positively impact the workplace. In step one, we explored the main effects of body image and candidate attractiveness on the belief the candidate would positively impact the workplace, R =.33, F (3, 51) = 2.02, ns. Results revealed that participants perceived the less attractive candidate as having more potential to positively impact the workplace than the more attractive candidate ( B =.30), p =.04. Yet, there was no significant main effect of body image ( B =.11), ns, nor was there an interaction between body image and attractive condition ( B =.18), ns, R =.35, F (4, 50) = 1.80, ns. Marginally Significant results: Next we explored the effects of condition and body image on perceptions of whether individuals would hire this candidate or not. In step one, we explored the main effects of body image and candidate attractiveness on the belief the candidate was qualified for the designated job, R =.28, F (3, 51) = 1.47, ns. Though the results were only marginally significant, they revealed that participants perceived the less attractive candidate as being more qualified to take this job ( β =.26), p =.07. Yet, there was no significant main effect of body image ( β =.54), ns, nor was there an interaction between body image and attractive condition ( β =.10), ns, R =.29, F (4, 50) = 1.1, ns. Next we explored the effects of condition and body image on perceptions of whether applicants would get along with other coworkers. In step one, we explored the main effects of body image and candidate attractiveness on the belief the candidate would get along with the

12 BODY IMAGE AND FIRST IMPRESSIONS 12 surrounding coworkers, R =.29, F (3, 51) = 1.56, ns. Though the results were only marginally significant, they revealed that participants perceived the less attractive candidate as being more likely to get along with others ( β =.26), ns. Yet, there was significant main effect of body image ( β =.35), p =.05, but was there no significant interaction between body image and attractive condition ( β =.05), ns, R =.29, F (4, 50) = 1.6, ns. Next we explored the effects of condition and body image on perceptions of whether the candidate would succeed at the given job. In step one, we explored the main effects of body image and candidate attractiveness on the belief the candidate would succeed at the given job position, R =.67, F (3, 51) = 1.23, ns. Though the results were only marginally significant, they revealed that participants perceived the less attractive candidate as being more successful ( β =.26), p =.07. Yet, there was no significant main effect of body image ( β =.25), ns, nor was there an interaction between body image and attractive condition ( β =.28), ns, R =.33, F (4, 50) = 1.2, ns. Discussion As seen in our results, we did not find significant interactions of body image on any of our dependant variables. Although we did find significant results on whether or not the attractive individual or the unattractive individual was predicted to make a positive impact. This phenomenon can be explained by the beauty is beastly effect ( Shahani Denning, 2003). In short this beauty is beastly effect is, Attractive females are evaluated less favorably than unattractive females ( Shahani Denning, 2003). We also had a few marginally significant results regarding the attractiveness of the applicants. Unfortunately, none our findings were consistent

13 BODY IMAGE AND FIRST IMPRESSIONS 13 with our hypothesis, because there were no interactions between body image and our dependent variables. We feel as though our lack of participants was a large factor in why we did not find more significant results. If we could have made it an online survey or accessible to more people, we could have found more results. Also, having more men in our sample other than just the 20 percent of our sample size being male could have hindered our results. Regardless, sample size in general was a large issue with our study considering we only had 60 participants in total, when in reality we needed at least 70 participants to have more reliability and viable results. Although our Chronbach s Alpha was reliable for the SATAQ questionnaire that we distributed.76, it did not allow us to find any significant correlations in any analysis we ran, which is why we chose to use the Self Discrepancy survey as a predictor of body image. Because I personally was not included in the process of finding a body image survey, I later found out that the SATAQ is used as part of a diagnostic tool for women with eating disorders ( Thompson et al., 2004). If we were to use a body image survey that allowed to be more gender neutral and used with individuals who did not suffer from an eating disorder, we may have been able to find significant results with this survey. While we did have another survey to indicate the self discrepancy of a person, I feel like it would have been our fatal flaw if we had not had a secondary survey. Instead I feel we should have used a survey like Silber and Tippett s self esteem measurement questionnaire, which uses more gender neutral questions, and I feel evaluates an individual's self esteem more thoroughly than the SATAQ, because it is not targeted toward women with an eating disorder (Silber & Tippett, 1965).

14 BODY IMAGE AND FIRST IMPRESSIONS 14 Another issue we had with our study was the consistency of the photos we presented to our participants. Some of the photos could be considered more professional than others, while some could be considered sexy by some because there was visible cleavage. None of the photos were very similar, some you could just the face of the applicant, and in others you could see down to her waist. Having more consistent photos could have impacted the results of our study. While we prompted our participants to take our study we may have introduced a fatal flaw by saying that one study was about gender differences while the other study was about job applicant biases. By mentioning the word biases we unintentionally primed participants to compensate for their own biases. Time was also a large issue with our research. We were the last group to submit to the IRB and one of the last groups to receive our approval, which hindered the amount of time that we were able to actually recruit participants. Also, we found it difficult to do analysis because we did not have much time. We would have liked to run more analysis, but with the time constraints we did not and only ran regression analysis. There has not been previous research on this specific topic, but it does not fit with all the literature, but if we had had a larger sample size, as well as a different survey we could have found the significant results that we wanted, and the individual parts of our study would have been consistent with pre existing literature.

15 BODY IMAGE AND FIRST IMPRESSIONS 15 References Bissell, K., & Rask, A. (2010). Real women on real beauty self discrepancy, internalisation of the thin ideal, and perceptions of attractiveness and thinness in Dove's campaign for real beauty. International Journal of Advertising, 29 (4), Dijkstra, P., & Barelds, D. P. (2011). Women's meta perceptions of attractiveness and their relations to body image. Body image, 8 (1), doi: /j.bodyim Higgins, E. T., Klein, R., & Strauman, T. (1985). Self concept discrepancy theory: A psychological model for distinguishing among different aspects of depression and anxiety. Social Cognition, 3, doi: /soco Horton, R. S. (2003). Similarity and attractiveness in social perception: Differentiating between biases for the self and the beautiful. Self and Identity, 2 (2), doi: / Kenealy, P., Gleeson, K., Frude, N., & Shaw, W. (1991). The importance of the individual in the causal relationship between attractiveness and self esteem. Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology, 1 (1), doi: /casp Kowner, R. (1995). The effect of physical attractiveness comparison on choice of partners. The Journal of social psychology, 135 (2), doi: / Oikawa, H., Sugiura, M., Sekiguchi, A., Tsukiura, T., Miyauchi, C. M., Hashimoto, T., & Kawashima, R. (2012). Self face evaluation and self esteem in young females: An fmri study using contrast effect. Neuroimage, 59 (4), doi: /j.neuroimage Owen, R., & Spencer, R. (2013). Body ideals in women after viewing images of typical and

16 BODY IMAGE AND FIRST IMPRESSIONS 16 healthy weight models. Body image. doi: /j.bodyim Rule, N., & Ambady, N. (2010). First impressions of the face: predicting success. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 4 (8), doi: /j x Silber, E., & Tippett, J. S. (1965). Self esteem: Clinical assessment and measurement validation Monograph Supplement 4 V16. Psychological Reports, 16 (3c), Shahani Denning, C. (2003). Physical attractiveness bias in hiring: What is beautiful is good. Retrieved February, 2, Sowislo, J. F., & Orth, U. (2013). Does low self esteem predict depression and anxiety? A meta analysis of longitudinal studies. Psychological Bulletin, 139 (1), 213. doi: /a Tennen, H., & Herzberger, S. (1987). Depression, self esteem, and the absence of self protective attributional biases. Journal of personality and social psychology, 52 (1), 72. Thompson, J. K., van den Berg, P., Roehrig, M., Guarda, A. S. and Heinberg, L. J. (2004), The sociocultural attitudes towards appearance scale 3 (SATAQ 3): Development and validation. Int. J. Eat. Disord., 35: doi: /eat.10257

17 BODY IMAGE AND FIRST IMPRESSIONS 17 Appendix A Samantha Winn Home: 5267 Mulberry St Evansville, Indiana (618) swinn@hotmail.com OBJECTIVE Full time Public Relations Specialist SUMMARY Highly motivated and goal oriented; Great interpersonal skills; Dedicated to helping people; Committed, driven, and disciplined; Dependable, mature, and loyal Computer Skills EDUCATION Graduated May 2007 Word Excel PowerPoint Explorer B.S. Business with a specialization in Communication and Finances University of Evansville, Evansville, IN LEADERSHIP Leadership Academy Fall 2005 Spring 2007 University of Evansville Enhanced leadership skills Attended weekly meetings Helped Tier 3 during their service project Work Experience Rhodes Insurance Spring 2007 Summer 2009 Evansville, IN Worked as the Office Secretary Filed Paperwork Mackey s Family Dental Summer 2009 Present Evansville, IN Worked as the Office Secretary Made Appointments Copied Papers Kept track of the book

18 BODY IMAGE AND FIRST IMPRESSIONS 18 Attractive women: Appendix B

19 BODY IMAGE AND FIRST IMPRESSIONS 19 Unattractive women: