The influence of communicator weight on psychoeducational message acceptance in females with high vs. low levels of body image disturbance

Transcription

1 Eating Behaviors 6 (2005) The influence of communicator weight on psychoeducational message acceptance in females with high vs. low levels of body image disturbance Steffanie Sperry, J. Kevin ThompsonT, Megan Roehrig, Joseph Vandello Department of Psychology, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL , USA Received 22 July 2004; received in revised form 11 January 2005; accepted 21 January 2005 Abstract Researchers have yet to examine the effect of the communicator s weight status on participants responses to an eating disorder or body dissatisfaction prevention program. It is plausible that participants may be reactive to the weight of the communicator (e.g., therapist), which might adversely affect acceptance of the message contained in the program. In the current study, 217 college females were randomly assigned to three communicator weight conditions (underweight, average weight, and overweight). Participants in each group were subdivided by trait body dissatisfaction level, based on a median split. The procedure involved the implementation of a wellestablished psychoeducational intervention designed to decrease endorsement of the thin-ideal. Results supported the overall efficacy of the intervention but indicated a minimal effect for participant s trait dissatisfaction level and communicator weight status on a variety of outcome measures. Limitations of the current study are provided, as well as recommendations for future research. D 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Body image; Eating disturbance; Communicator weight; Thin-ideal 1. Introduction Because body image dissatisfaction and eating pathology have become increasingly pervasive, substantial research has focused on intervention and prevention strategies for these conditions T Corresponding author. address: Thompson@cas.usf.edu (J.K. Thompson) /$ - see front matter D 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi: /j.eatbeh

2 248 S. Sperry et al. / Eating Behaviors 6 (2005) (Thompson, 2004; Thompson, Heinberg, Altabe, & Tantleff-Dunn, 1999). Great strides have been made in the development of successful prevention programs, and researchers agree that the next phase of prevention research should begin to examine potential moderators of treatment outcome (Littleton & Ollendick, 2003; Stice & Shaw, 2004). Characteristics of the prevention message communicator are one avenue of potential moderation that has received little research attention. In particular, the role of the message communicator s physical appearance in the outcome of a prevention program has not been examined. It is plausible that the weight of the communicator could have an impact on an individual suffering from an eating or body image disturbance by the shear nature of the disorders (extreme focus on weight). Because intervention approaches explicitly focus on body shape and weight issues, it seems likely that a communicator s weight would be especially salient. Damer (1992) provides the closest test of this supposition as it might apply to prevention programs for body image and eating disturbances. In her investigation, female eating-disordered, obese, and control clients rated an obese and a non-obese counselor. Eating-disordered participants rated obese and non-obese counselors more negatively than the control or obese counselors; however the ratings of the eating-disordered group did not differ as a function of the weight status of the counselors. It should be noted that a single item indexing the attractiveness of the counselor was used as the basis for these findings. With the exception of the Damer (1992) investigation, no additional research has been conducted with respect to the impact of therapist, counselor, or communicator weight on the treatment of eating disorders and milder forms of body image disturbance. 1 In addition, focus has yet to be placed on the impact of communicator weight and how that may influence the effectiveness of message transmission in an intervention and prevention setting. Knowing whether communicator weight affects the receiver of the anti-thin-ideal message could have a significant impact on therapeutic environments and might illuminate the question of whether a thin or obese therapist facilitates or hinders patient recovery. Accordingly, the current study was designed to determine if communicator weight status (underweight, average weight, and overweight) has an effect on the effectiveness and acceptance of a typical psychoeducational intervention and whether body image disturbance level would moderate the effects. Because of the limited work in this area, it is difficult to offer empirically driven hypotheses. However, it is conceivable that a psychoeducational message against the thin-ideal may lose validity when coming from an overweight communicator who might be perceived as less credible. The overweight communicator might be perceived as unreliable or biased in her intentions, having personal experience as an overweight individual herself. Her overweight status could be seen as grounds for clouded judgment on weight and appearance-related issues. However, a bthinnerq communicator may also affect the acceptance and effectiveness of the message. For instance, an upward comparison process might be engendered, which might cause the participant to feel worse about her body in effect overwhelming the anti-thin ideal message contained in the psychoeducational message. Because body-dissatisfied individuals tend to be more critical of the weight status of others (especially those who are overweight) (e.g., Beebe, Hombeck, Schober, Lane, & Rosa, 1996), it is possible that those participants who score high on initial body dissatisfaction will be less accepting of the message presented by the overweight communicator. 1 We will use the term bcommunicator Q throughout, rather than btherapistq or bcounselor,q because it is more generic and perhaps more representative of some intervention programs or manipulations that are not presented as a therapeutic strategy.

3 S. Sperry et al. / Eating Behaviors 6 (2005) In sum, we hypothesize that individuals with high levels of body dissatisfaction will be less accepting of the message given by an underweight communicator or an overweight communicator. Given the importance of evaluating variables that might moderate the effectiveness of body image and eating disorder treatment and prevention programs, the investigation of the possible role of the weight status of the communicator as it affects participant outcomes such as body image and mood changes, along with acceptance of the program s message, needs to be evaluated in a systematic fashion. 2. Methods 2.1. Participants The participants were 238 females between the ages of 18 and 25 years (M=20.55, S.D.=1.84) selected from the University of South Florida subject pool. Those participants who failed the Attention Check (n=21; see Methods) were eliminated from further analyses, leaving a final sample of 217. This sample size has sufficient power to detect a medium effect size ( f=.25) with power set at.80 and alpha at.05 for the planned analyses (see below) (Cohen, 1992). The ethnic composition of the sample was quite diverse, including 14.7% African Americans, 47.9% Caucasians, 19.4% Hispanics, 17.1% others, and two participants who withheld their ethnicity. Participants were compensated with extra credit in their psychology course(s) for participating in the study Measures and stimulus materials Stimuli and psychoeducational vignette Communicator weight images. The communicator weight images were created using virtual models on the website (My Virtual Model Inc., 2001). This method allowed for the manipulation of weight, while keeping all other appearance characteristics constant. In addition, the entire weight and body structure of the woman can be manipulated, compared to other photograph stretching techniques that tend to cause distortion. Because the website will not allow a model to be sufficiently underweight for this study, an airbrushing technique in Adobe Photo Shop 5.0 (Adobe Systems Incorporated, ) was used on the underweight model to decrease her apparent weight. Black and white photocopies were then created of the three communicators standing in an office setting to increase the realism of the models. Photocopying seemed to eliminate the artificial nature of the virtual skin on the models. A panel of judges consisting of a body image research group then rated the size and realism of the images and found them to be representative of the intended weight conditions and to be sufficiently real. A pilot test was subsequently performed with a sample of 20 undergraduates who rated the weight status of the images and this affirmed that the images fell into the appropriate weight conditions. The photos measured 1.5 in.1.75 in. (see Appendix A for these images) Psychoeducational vignette. The specific communication was a psychoeducational message aimed at combating acceptance of the media s thin-ideal (Posavac, Posavac, & Weigel, 2001). Posavac et al. (2001) showed that participants who received this intervention reported significantly less weight concern than participants who were exposed to a control intervention.

4 250 S. Sperry et al. / Eating Behaviors 6 (2005) The psychoeducational vignette contained two primary components: Artificial Beauty and Genetic Realities (Posavac et al., 2001). The Artificial Beauty segment speaks to the idea that women should not compare themselves to fashion models because the models beauty is created through various deceiving photographic techniques; thus the beauty is artificial. The Genetic Realities component is centered on the argument that women should not compare themselves to models because weight is largely the result of genetic factors, which vary between individuals (Posavac et al., 2001) Participant measures A variety of measures were included in the study to evaluate participant change as a function of the intervention, as well as participant ratings of the effectiveness of the intervention and the competence of the message communicator. The primary measures of interest for the purposes of this study were those that involved a rating of the communicator; other measures were included to gauge the participants responsiveness to the psychoeducational message and their view of the content of the message Visual analog scales Visual analog scales were used to measure the level of participant state body image dissatisfaction. The specific scales used in this study measured weight/size dissatisfaction and appearance dissatisfaction. Participants were asked to mark their level of dissatisfaction on a 100-mm line, with the leftmost point being bno weight/size dissatisfactionq (bno overall appearance dissatisfactionq) and the rightmost point being that of bextreme weight/size dissatisfactionq (bextreme overall appearance dissatisfactionq). The distance from the leftmost point on the line (0), measured in millimeters, indicates the level of distress (Thompson et al., 1999). This measure has been found to correlate highly with the Eating Disorder Inventory Body Dissatisfaction subscale (e.g., Heinberg & Thompson, 1995) and has been widely used because it is brief and can be repeated within a short time period without participants remembering their previous responses (Thompson, 2004) Attitude measure and message rating form These two scales were created for the current study to index the effect of the vignette in modifying thin-ideal endorsement and for rating the effectiveness of the communicator. The items were based on the Sociocultural Attitudes Towards Appearance Scale (Heinberg, Thompson, & Stormer, 1995) and an evaluation of the content of the psychoeducational vignette (Posavac et al., 2001). The 10-item Attitude Measure used a 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree) Likert format for rating such statements as: bi feel less pressure from TV or magazines to lose weightq (positive statement) or bi would like my body to look like the people who are on TVQ (negative statement). The Attitude Measure produced an alpha of.81 for this sample. The six-item Message Rating Form also used a Likert format (extremely unconvincing) to (extremely convincing) for rating the communicator s performance (i.e., bhow convincing was the applicant s speech?q) An alpha of.79 was obtained for this sample Counselor Rating Form The Counselor Rating Form (Barak & LaCrosse, 1975) is a measure of counselor effectiveness (communicator effectiveness for this study). It contains 36 adjective pairs including battractive unattractiveq and bunlikeable likeable.q There are three scales consisting of 12 items each: expertness,

5 S. Sperry et al. / Eating Behaviors 6 (2005) attractiveness, and trustworthiness. The split half reliability for each subscale is as follows: expertness (.87), attractiveness (.85), and trustworthiness (.91) (Barak & LaCrosse, 1975). Construct validity has been demonstrated through factor analysis (Barak & LaCrosse, 1975). For the purpose of this study, bcommunicatorq was substituted for bcounselorq throughout the scale. For the current sample, an alpha of.82 was found on the attractiveness subscale, an alpha of.91 was obtained on the expertness subscale, and an alpha of.78 was found on the trustworthiness subscale Problem List The Problem List was created by Cash, Begley, McCown, and Weise (1975) to measure the participants confidence that the counselor would be effective with 20 types of personal problems. Six items were chosen for the current study. Two general items were averaged to create a composite score of bgeneral applicant and program effectivenessq (Based on your impression of the applicant, how sure are you that you would attend a program in which she was the speaker? How sure are you that the applicant would be able to help you with your own problems?). Four other items rated the applicant s effectiveness with the following problems: obesity, alcohol, weight/food, and self-esteem. The participants were asked to respond along a six-point scale from bvery doubtfulq to bvery confidentq. An alpha of.90 was obtained on the Problem List for the current sample Multidimensional Body-Self Relations Questionnaire Appearance Evaluation Subscale (MBSRQ-AES) This is a seven-item scale used to measure overall trait appearance satisfaction and evaluation (Cash, 1995, 1996, 1997). The scale has an internal consistency of.88 in a standardized sample of 1070 women. The MBSRQ-AES was used to block on level of participant body dissatisfaction, with high vs. low groups being established. An alpha of.88 was obtained for the current sample Manipulation Check The Manipulation Check was designed to ensure that participants actually rated the communicator in the appropriate weight category. Participants were asked to rate the weight of the communicator by placing a slash mark on a line, with the far left extreme being 0 (bvery underweightq) and the right extreme being 8 (bvery overweightq) Attention Check The Attention Check was composed of five true/false questions regarding the information given in the vignette. Any participant who failed to correctly answer four of the five questions was excluded from further data analyses Procedure Psychology undergraduate women were recruited to participate in classroom settings. Several seats separated participants during testing to guarantee their own privacy, but this also ensured that those participants with different communicator images (underweight, average weight, and overweight) would not see the photos from another condition. Each participant was given a manila folder with the communicator s photograph stapled to the left inside cover. This was done primarily in support of the cover story to create the perception that the

6 252 S. Sperry et al. / Eating Behaviors 6 (2005) participants were actually part of a job applicant selection process. They were asked not to open the folder until the forms paper-clipped to the outside front cover had been completed. The outside forms included, in the following order: the Informed Consent Form, the Demographic Questionnaire, the MBSRQ-AES, and the pre-manipulation VAS. Following completion of the outside forms, participants were instructed to open the folders and continue with the experiment. All of the packet contents were bound at the top, right side of the folder. This allowed for the communicator picture (stapled to the left inside cover) to be visible throughout the entire experiment, thus increasing communicator salience. The cover story (instructions) comprised the first page of the packet, followed by the psychoeducational vignette. The following instructions were given to all conditions: byou have been selected to help the body image research team fill a job position. We are interested in hiring an individual who will be effective in improving body image concerns in young women through public speaking, primarily on college campuses. We are asking for your input because you are representative of the college female population that the speaker will be trying to assist. The job applicants were asked to send us an excerpt from a speech they had given in the past. With the questionnaires that we will obtain from you and a number of your fellow students, we hope to assess how effective the applicant s message will be in reducing body image concerns in women. You will be asked to read the speech excerpt sent in by one of the job applicants. Please try to put yourself in the scenario that you are sitting in an auditorium listening to this person give the full-length version of the speech contained in your packet. The more you are able to simulate this, the more accurate your assessment of the speaker s message will be. We ask that you be completely honest, because our ultimate goal is to find the speaker who presents the most effective message so that we can maximize body image improvement in young women. The applicant was asked to scan a photo of herself which is included in your packet to assist you in making an accurate assessment.q After the vignette, the second VAS was completed, followed by the Attitude Measure, Message Rating Form, Counselor Rating Form, and Problem List. (The measures related to judgments and evaluation of the communicator were placed last in the packet to reduce demand effects, which might have led participants to selectively focus on the communicator s image earlier in the study, reducing the credibility of the cover story which focused the participant on the message.) The Manipulation Check was given at this point, followed by the final measure, the Attention Check. The communicator ratings and the Manipulation Check were completed last so as not to direct any focus on the communicator until completion of the other measures. The participants were then debriefed and awarded extra credit points Design and analyses Participants were blocked on body image disturbance (high vs. low) via a median split. Communicator weight status (underweight, average weight, and overweight) was the second betweensubjects factor, thus establishing a 23 ANOVA design. The VAS measures were completed prior to and after exposure to the psychoeducational vignette; therefore a 232 (Time; pre, post) ANOVA was conducted on the VAS scores. All other measures were completed following the vignette; therefore, time was not a factor in these 23 ANOVAs.

7 S. Sperry et al. / Eating Behaviors 6 (2005) Because there were 13 dependent measures, a Bonferroni correction (.10/13) was used to control for Type I errors. A corrected alpha of.008 was used to determine a significant effect. A significance level of.05 was used as a cutoff for bmarginalq effects. 3. Results 3.1. Preliminary analyses At the onset of analyses, participants who failed to achieve four of five on the Attention Check were removed. Consequently, 21 participants were eliminated, resulting in an N=217. The ANOVAs on BMI and age did not reveal significant differences. Additionally, a Pearson s chi-square test found no significant differences among the racial/ethnic composition of the groups. Collectively, these results suggest that random assignment was effective Manipulation Check The ANOVA conducted on the estimated communicator weight scale of the Manipulation Check revealed a significant difference between weight conditions ( F(2, 210)= , pb.001). This suggests that a significant difference was found between all three communicators with respect to their weight (2.7 vs. 4.1 vs. 5.8). The virtual image weight manipulations were successful in that each communicator was seen as a significantly different weight than the other two communicators Intervention analyses Table 1 contains means, standard deviations, and significance test findings. Significant main effects were found for time for both VAS overall appearance dissatisfaction ( F(1,209)=22.73, pb.001, g 2 =.10) and VAS weight/size dissatisfaction level ( F(1,209)=65.823, pb.001, g 2 =.24). In both cases, participants became less dissatisfied with appearance as a function of reading the psychoeducational vignette. For the Attitude Measure, there was a significant main effect for trait dissatisfaction ( F(1, 210)=19.101, pb.001, g 2 =.08), indicating that satisfied participants agreed more with the psychoeducational message than those who were dissatisfied (35.7 vs. 32.1). A marginal main effect was found for participant dissatisfaction level on the Message Rating Form ( F(1, 211)=4.057, p=.045), indicating that satisfied participants found the psychoeducational message slightly more convincing than the dissatisfied participants (25.9 vs. 25.0). A marginal main effect was found for communicator weight condition on the Attractiveness subscale of the CRF ( F(2, 206)=4.024, p=.019). An analysis of the means indicated that the average-weight communicator (64.8) was rated as most attractive, followed by the underweight communicator (62.5) and the overweight communicator (60.4). For the Problem List, there was a marginal main effect for participant dissatisfaction level on question 3A (How helpful would the communicator be in dealing with alcohol issues?) ( F(1, 209)= 4.260, p=.04). Those participants who were more satisfied with their bodies reported that the

8 254 S. Sperry et al. / Eating Behaviors 6 (2005) Table 1 ANOVA analyses for all measures Level of dissatisfaction Underweight Average weight Overweight Effect Analyses ( F, p) Attitude measure Low 35.7 (6.65) (5.61) (6.33) WC 1.564,.212 High (5.94) (5.83) (6.07) BD ,.0001 All (6.45) (6.15) (6.37) WC*BD.364,.696 Message rating form Low (4.53) (2.17) (3.40) WC 1.685,.188 High (3.22) (3.04) (3.36) BD 4.057,.045 All (3.92) (2.65) (3.38) WC*BD.128,.880 Counselor Rating Form (CRF) CRF attractiveness Low (9.12) (7.53) (9.97) WC 4.024,.019 High (8.66) (7.85) (8.11) BD 3.138,.078 All (9.05) (7.61) (9.11) WC*BD.568,.568 CRF expertness Low (11.27) (9.72) (10.38) WC 1.758,.175 High (10.37) (6.76) (9.72) BD 3.313,.070 All (11.02) (8.47) (10.04) WC*BD.687,.504 CRF trustworthiness Low (11.07) (10.18) (14.37) WC 1.365,.258 High (9.73) (7.53) (9.66) BD 1.663,.199 All (10.45) (9.04) (12.40) WC*BD.416,.660 Problem list PL: items 1 and 2 Low 7.82 (3.31) 8.56 (1.87) 7.73 (2.64) WC.575,.564 High 7.30 (2.45) 7.50 (1.70) 7.78 (2.47) BD 2.158,.143 All 7.56 (2.91) 8.03 (1.86) 7.76 (2.54) WC*BD.814,.445 PL alcohol Low 3.50 (1.88) 2.87 (1.56) 3.05 (1.75) WC.328,.721 High 2.56 (1.54) 2.77 (1.73) 2.68 (1.42) BD All 3.04 (1.77) 2.83 (1.62) 2.87 (1.60) WC*BD 1.15,.319 PL weight/food Low 4.50 (1.73) 4.60 (1.37) 4.12 (1.94) WC.917,.401 High 3.82 (1.59) 4.35 (1.26) 4.11 (1.47) BD 2.005,.158 All 4.16 (1.68) 4.48 (1.31) 4.12 (1.72) WC*BD.865,.422 PL self-esteem Low 4.70 (1.80) 4.81 (1.40) 4.27 (1.88) WC.340,.712 High 4.10 (1.37) 4.27 (1.64) 4.35 (1.44) BD 2.509,.115 All 4.41 (1.62) 4.57 (1.52) 4.31 (1.68) WC*BD 1.037,.356 PL obesity Low 4.18 (1.93) 4.00 (1.63) 3.80 (2.00) WC.347,.707 High 3.62 (1.65) 4.19 (1.67) 3.89 (1.66) BD.145,.704 Estimated communicator weight status All 3.90 (1.81) 4.09 (1.64) 3.85 (1.84) WC*BD.956,.386 Low (13.09) (8.50) (11.81) WC ,.0001 High (14.97) (10.22) (8.51) BD.005,.942 All (14.02) (9.25) (10.47) WC*BD 1.479,.230 VAS Underweight Average weight Overweight Effect Analyses ( F, p) Overall appearance Low Time (19.81) (17.75) (18.70) TM ,.0001 dissatisfaction Time (17.20) (20.70) (17.02) TM*WC.078,.925 High Time (22.11) (23.63) (18.46) TM*BD 1.280,.259 Time (20.02) (20.95) (18.08) TM*WC*BD.194,.823 Weight/size dissatisfaction Low Time (21.67) (23.10) (20.05) TM ,.0001 Time (19.53) (20.99) (16.46) TM*WC.624,.537 High Time (23.68) (26.35) (25.39) TM*BD 1.636,.202 Time (24.77) (24.54) (25.24) TM*WC*BD.181,.835

9 S. Sperry et al. / Eating Behaviors 6 (2005) communicator would be more helpful with alcohol problems than did the dissatisfied participants (3.1 vs. 2.7). 4. Discussion The goals of the current study were to explore whether or not the weight of an intervention communicator has an effect on participants ratings of the individual, as well as whether there would be differential participant changes in the acceptance and effectiveness of a psychoeducational message based on the weight of the communicator. The effectiveness of the psychoeducational message created by Posavac et al. (2001) was replicated in the current study, reducing state body and appearance dissatisfaction in all participants. However, there was no moderating effect of communicator weight status or trait dissatisfaction level on body dissatisfaction, indicating that all participants improved similarly. The finding of an overall effect of the vignette on body dissatisfaction is important because it enhances the validity of the findings for communicator weight status. Participants were affected in the desired direction; the psychoeducational message was effective, yet it was not differentially effective for participants who presumed that the communicator was underweight, overweight, or average-weight. Trait level of dissatisfaction also did not affect the body dissatisfaction levels after exposure to the psychoeducational vignette; however, trait dissatisfaction level was found to affect acceptance of the psychoeducation message, with dissatisfied participants agreeing with it significantly less than satisfied participants. Additionally, there was a marginal effect suggesting that dissatisfied participants found the psychoeducational message less convincing than those who were satisfied with their bodies. There was also a marginal effect for satisfaction level such that satisfied participants felt that all communicators would be better able to help with alcohol issues than the dissatisfied participants. The bnegativeq findings of this study actually have positive implications for the field of eating disorders the communicator s weight may not have a substantial impact on message acceptance. If this is the case, it would not be necessary to consider the weight of intervention program communicators when evaluating their effectiveness. This would be a huge advance in work in the prevention area because it would rule out one potential factor to consider in the implementation of programs that might impede or maximize outcome. However, there are important limitations of the current study that need to be addressed in future work. For instance, it is conceivable that the communicator weight stimulus materials used in the present study were not salient enough to produce an effect. Only a small photo was given to the participants and they were asked to bimagineq that they were sitting in an auditorium listening to this person speak. This representation of the communicator s photo, and consequently her weight, might not have been powerful enough to elicit group differences. One might argue that if the photo were threedimensional or if a real person delivered the message live or on a video, communicator weight Notes to Table 1: WC=weight condition; BD=body dissatisfaction; TM=time. Underweight/low dissatisfaction (n=40), underweight/high dissatisfaction (n=41), average weight/low dissatisfaction (n=32), average weight/high dissatisfaction (n=26), overweight/low dissatisfaction (n=41), overweight/high dissatisfaction (n=37).

10 256 S. Sperry et al. / Eating Behaviors 6 (2005) would be more salient and powerful, and thus could affect the acceptance of the message and the participant ratings of the communicator. Also, it is possible that bup-close contactq with a communicator, such as a dietician or therapist, when the task is setting dietary goals or engaging in cognitive behavioral therapy for body image disturbance might enhance any effect of the communicator weight status. While plausible (and worthy of future empirical tests), there is a theoretical reason to suggest that such changes to the current methodology may not produce different results. For instance, differences in communicator weight may not have produced significant effects because weight is seen as a peripheral cue, whereas the content of the message is more central to determining effectiveness of the intervention. The Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) of social persuasion (Petty & Cacioppo, 1984, 1986) could be used to explain the lack of significant effects across communicator weight conditions. According to the ELM, when people have sufficient motivation and ability, they will process a message centrally, attending to the strength and quality of the arguments. If a person lacks motivation or ability to process the message, that individual will be more likely to attend to peripheral cues (such as qualities of the communicator) and less likely to attend to the message itself. In the present study, the lack of significant effects across communicator weight conditions could be because participants were sufficiently motivated to attend to the psychoeducational message itself. One factor that would increase the motivation to process centrally and decrease the need to notice peripheral cues, according to the ELM, is personal relevance. In the present study, the cover story told participants they were being used to select a spokesperson to speak out to college woman much like themselves. The cover story could have increased personal relevance to the extent that only central processing of the message was chosen, resulting in a lack of attention to peripheral cues (communicator weight). Indeed, we can assume that in most intervention programs, personal relevance will be high and people will be motivated to attend carefully to the message, thus decreasing the importance of cues like communicator weight. In addition to the potential methodological variations in the presentation of the stimuli noted above, subject variables might also be broadened in extensions of the current study. For instance, it is possible that individuals with more extreme body dissatisfaction, as found in a clinical eating disorder sample, might be more responsive to communicator weight. Additionally, it is possible that adolescent girls may be more sensitive to the communicator s weight or, perhaps, less subject than adults to the possible social desirability or demand effects inherent in this type of research (e.g., a tendency to defer from rating individuals negatively based on body size). Alternatively, ethnicity could be evaluated in future work, with the goal of determining if, for instance, African American, Hispanic American, and Caucasian females respond similarly to communicator body size. In sum, this initial study sought to examine the role of the communicator s body weight on participants ratings of the individual, along with the impact of the message delivered by the communicator on the participants response and acceptance of a psychoeducational message. The findings generally indicated that the size of the communicator had little effect on any of the dependent measures and did not interact with body dissatisfaction level of the participants. However, there are many methodological features of the current study that might be varied in future work to further examine this issue and ultimately inform the question of whether the characteristics of the messenger have an impact on the intended message delivered in eating and body image disturbance prevention programs.

11 S. Sperry et al. / Eating Behaviors 6 (2005) Appendix A. Communicator images References Adobe Systems Incorporated ( ). Adobe Photoshop (Version 5.0) [computer software]. Barak, A., & LaCrosse, M. G. (1975). Multidimensional perception of counselor behavior. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 22(6), Beebe, D. W., Hombeck, G. N., Schober, A., Lane, M., & Rosa, K. (1996). Is body focus restricted to self-evaluation? Body focus in the evaluation of self and others. International Journal of Eating Disorders, 20, Cash, T. F. (1995). What Do You See When You Look in the Mirror? Helping Yourself to a Positive Body Image. New York7 Bantam Books. Cash, T. F. (1996). The treatment of body image disturbances. In J. K. Thompson (Ed.), Body Image, Eating Disorders, and Obesity: An Integrative Guide for Assessment and Treatment (pp ). Washington, DC7 American Psychological Association. Cash, T. F. (1997). The Body Image Workbook: An 8-step Program for Learning to Like Your Looks. Oakland, CA7 New Harbinger. Cash, T. F., Begley, P. J., McCown, D. A., & Weise, B. C. (1975). When counselors are heard but not seen: Initial impact of physical attractiveness. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 22, Cohen, J. (1992). A power primer. Psychological Bulletin, 112, Damer, D. E. (1992). Clients perceptions of counselor characteristics: Eating disorder, obese, and control clients rate obese and non-obese counselors. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, West Virginia University. Heinberg, L. J., & Thompson, J. K. (1995). Body image and televised images of attractiveness: A controlled laboratory investigation. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 14, Heinberg, L. J., Thompson, J. K., & Stormer, S. (1995). Development and validation of the Sociocultural Attitudes Toward Appearance Questionnaire (SATAQ). International Journal of Eating Disorders, 17, Littleton, H. L., & Ollendick, T. (2003). Negative body image and disordered eating behavior in children and adolescents: What places youth at risk and how can these problems be prevented? Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review, 6, My Virtual Model Inc. (2001). Petty, R. E., & Cacioppo, J. T. (1984). The effects of involvement on responses to argument quantity and quality: Central and peripheral routes to persuasion. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 46, Petty, R. E., & Cacioppo, J. T. (1986). Communication and Persuasion: Central and Peripheral Routes to Attitude Change. New York7 Springer-Verlag.

12 258 S. Sperry et al. / Eating Behaviors 6 (2005) Posavac, H. D., Posavac, S. S., & Weigel, R. G. (2001). Reducing the impact of media images on women at risk for body image disturbance: Three targeted interventions. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 20(3), Stice, E., & Shaw, H. (2004). Eating disorder prevention programs: A meta-analytic review. Psychological Bulletin, 130, Thompson, J. K. (2004). The mismeasurement of body image. Ten strategies for improving assessment for clinical and research purposes. Body Image: An International Journal of Research, 1, Thompson, J. K., Heinberg, L. J., Altabe, M., & Tantleff-Dunn, S. (1999). Exacting beauty: Theory, Assessment, and Treatment of Body Image Disturbance. Washington, DC7 American Psychological Association.