Mackenzie Davis NATS

Transcription

1 ANALYSIS OF SORORITY AND NON-SORORITY WOMEN S SELF-IMAGE BASED ON SELECTION OF CURRENT BODY TYPE, IDEAL BODY TYPE AND BODY TYPE THAT IS MOST ATTRACTIVE TO MEN ON A FIGURE RATING SCALE. Mackenzie Davis NATS

2 I. ABSTRACT A figure rating scale survey was administered to 20 women ranging from the age of 8-40 years old over Facebook. The goal of the survey was to determine if sorority women more positively perceived their own bodies as attractive to men compared to women who were not in a sorority. This information was quantified by calculating the mean difference between selfselected current body types (CBS) and self-selected body type that is most attractive to men (ABS). Since each body type was assigned a number -9 (=very thin, 9=obese), the quantification of data was simple. The p-value between CBS-ABS values from sorority and nonsorority women was 0.964, which exceed the chosen level of significance α=0.05. Therefore, there is no difference in the way that sorority and non-sorority women perceive themselves being attractive to men. It was also found that there is no difference in the body satisfaction of sorority women and non-sorority women. II. INTRODUCTION Women s fraternities and sororities claim to enrich a woman s life, and help women strive toward personal excellence. Some specific claims include: leads a woman to personal excellence, offering her ways to become her best self. - Kappa Alpha Theta attain a higher standard, thereby improving their lives, the lives of those around them and the communities in which they live. - Alpha Gamma Delta inspire the ideals of truth, self-sacrifice and friendship. Tri Delta Behind these vague statements are groups of complex individuals striving to meet many moral, intellectual and social ideals. Some experts consider body dissatisfaction a normal

3 experience among women in economically developed settings (Smith, Cornelissen & Tovée, 2007). Because of the cost of membership in a sorority or women s fraternity, one can assume that sorority members come from an economically developed setting. The same goes for college students in general. With the cost of tuition, it can be said that college students are within an economically developed setting. So women who are in college, whether in a sorority or not, probably deal with body dissatisfaction at some point. The belief statements of sororities claim to give women an advantage when facing the trials of life. Are the ideals of the sorority and women s fraternity in practice reflected in the self-perception of its members? In comparison with women who are not a part of a sorority or women s fraternity, would the club members have a more positive perception of their bodies? The aim of this investigation is to see if members of a sorority or women s fraternity current perceived body type (CBS) is closer to their ideal body type (IBS) than women who are not members in a sorority. For clarification, the acronyms used during this experiment go as follows: CBS=current body type IBS= ideal body type ABS= Body type that is most attractive to men Secondly the purpose of this study is to see if sorority women consider themselves more attractive to men, than non-sorority women consider themselves. In order to assess one s perception of their own body and attractiveness, a figure rating scale with nine figures (=very thin, 9=obese) was used to assess the participants perception of their body and its attractiveness. The figure rating scale is often used in rating bodily dissatisfaction, by comparing the figure number chosen for current body type to the participant s

4 figure number chosen for ideal body type (Fingeret, Gleaves & Pearson, 2004). Women are often asked to rank the figure number that they believe is most attractive to men (ABS), and this number has been found to be a significantly larger body figure than was chosen for ideal body type (Fingeret, Gleaves & Pearson, 2004). It was hypothesized that the difference between CBS and ABS value on the figure rating scale for sorority women would be significantly smaller than the difference between the CBS and ABS value for non-sorority women. This can be interpreted as sorority women having a higher confidence in the way their bodies are perceived by men. There are many variables to be considered in the results of the figure rating survey that were not considered before its production. For instance, the order in which questions are asked can affect the value on the figure rating scale that are chosen for ABS and IBS values. A study conducted at A&M University claims that asking a participant to rate IBS and ABS values in succession can make a participant think that they are supposed to choose different body type for their ideal and what they think is most attractive to men (Fingeret, Gleaves & Pearson, 2004). This was not considered in the creation of this study; IBS and ABS were asked consecutively. III. EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN Participants were selected based on convenience for this study. The survey was administered over Facebook, from a profile that is connected to college women who are in a sorority and college women who are not in a sorority. The women who took the survey participated by volunteering, no one was specifically asked to take the survey.

5 IIII. MATERIALS Qualtrics, an online survey tool was used in the creation of the survey and the collection of data. A link produced by Qualtrics allowed participants to take the survey, and for their data to be saved. In order to format the figure rating scale so that each number had its own answer choice, paint was used to select certain portions of the full image. The survey link was posted on Facebook, with a specific script according to IRB approval. The Facebook script is as follows: Hello Friends, the link is to a figure drawings survey I created for Research Methods. It is only 7 questions, so please participate to help me out! This message was posted with this link to the survey: V. PROCEDURES The survey was administered on Facebook, because this was the most time effective way to contact many college women. The survey was posted on Kappa Alpha Theta s group page, as Mackenzie Davis s status, and as Hillary Fulgam s status. The sample of sorority members who

6 participated in the survey was a skewed representation of the women in Greek life at UT Dallas. Out of the sorority members who took the survey, 59 % considered themselves White/ Caucasian, 7% considered themselves Asian/Pacific Islander, 7% Hispanic, 3% Latino, 7% Multiracial, and 7% Other. These demographic percentages were not chosen, instead they are the result of who chose to participate in the survey. This racial demographic does not accurately represent the races represented at UT Dallas. According to Cappex, the UT Dallas campus is 38.3% White/non-Hispanic, 2.% non-resident/alien, 8.% Asian/Pacific Islander, 2.% Hispanic and 5.0 % Black/non-Hispanic. The survey is biased because most of the sorority members who took the survey were from the UT Dallas chapter of Kappa Alpha Theta. The survey was posted specifically on the Kappa Alpha Theta Facebook page. The sample of non-sorority women was meant to reflect the women who were students at UT Dallas, but not part of a sorority. A question on the survey distinguished the participant as part of a sorority or not. By fault of design, there was no question on the survey to indicate whether the participant was a student at UT Dallas or not, so there is no way to know whether the participants were actually students or not. VI. DATA ANALYSIS When the CBS of sorority participants and non-sorority participants were analyzed, it was concluded that there was no difference in the perceived current body type of the two groups. The similarity of perceived current body types can be seen in Graph and Graph 2.

7 Graph. CBS of sorority member participants Graph 2. CBS of non-sorority participants. The p-value comparing the current body type selected by non-sorority members and sorority members was p=0.53, which is above the significance level of α=0.05. This test was comparing the number on the body rating scale selected by women in a sorority and women who were not in a sorority. The body rating scale can be seen in the appendix, figure i. This shows what size women in a sorority and not in a sorority perceive their body to be. The question is subjective, so there is no basis of comparison of the actual current body types of the participants.

8 Based on the comparison, there is no difference of the perceived body type of sorority women to non-sorority women. In simpler terms, the group of sorority participants had similar body types to the group on non-sorority participants. The difference between sorority CBS and ABS values and non-sorority CBS and ABS values were analyzed by looking at the absolute value of the difference between the two. A list of differences for each participant was compiled (Appendix ii), and a t-test was performed. The p-value from the t-test was p=0.964, greater than the significance value α=0.05. This means that there is no significant difference in the gap between their current body type (CBS) and the body type they think is most attractive to men (ABS). Graph 3. Sorority ABS

9 Graph 4. Non-Sorority ABS The differences in ABS and CBS values within the sorority and non-sorority groups based on selected ethnicity were assessed. The only ethnic group that could be assessed were white, Asian and multiracial. The only significant difference found was within the group of participants in a sorority, between participants that considered themselves Asian or white. The p-value produced from comparing the difference between the CBS and ABS values of white and Asian participants, was Most would consider this number unreliable, because the data from 35 participants that considered themselves white was compared to the data of 4 participants that considered themselves Asian. But this result could be due to being a minority, and the Asian students might consider the majority of women in sororities- white females- the standard of beauty. Within the sorority group, when the white participants data was compared to respondents that considered themselves multi-racial, there was no significance difference. Within the non-sorority group, there was no statistical difference when the difference in CBS and ABS responses of white vs. Asian participants and white vs. multiracial participants were compared. The following table outline the ethnicity of respondents in each group.

10 White Asian Multi-racial Soroity Non-sorority Table. The number of respondents of certain ethnicities VI.CONCLUSION It can be concluded with 95% confidence that out of the participants from the survey, there was no difference in the way that the sorority and the non-sorority women perceived their own bodies. Therefore, the sorority ideals, in practice, do not cause sorority women to perceive their bodies in a more positive manner than women who are not in a sorority.

11 VII. REFERENCES Fingeret, M., Gleaves, D., & Pearson, C. (2004). On the methodology of body image assessment: the use of figural rating scales to evaluate body dissatisfaction and the ideal body standards of women. Body Image, (2), Smith,K.L, Cornelissen, P.L. Tovée, M.J. (2007). Color 3D bodies and judgments of human female attractiveness Evolution and Human Behavior, 28, pp Thomas, C. D., & Freeman, R. J. (990). The body esteem scale: Construct validity of the female subscales.journal of Personality Assessment, 54(&2), doi: EbscoHost

12 VIII. Appendix i. The figures shown for the figure rating survey found from google images. ii. The list of the values when the absolute value of the difference between CBS and ABS response for each participant. This data shows the individual differences in perception of men s attraction to them. The larger the value of the difference, the less attracted they perceive men to be to their current body type. For sorority women the average difference is.57, and for sorority women the average difference is.56. CBS-ABS CBS-ABS nonsorority sorority

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14 iii. All Respontants CBS; This shows that most women who took the survey consider themselves to be a 3,4, or 5 on the figure rating scale.

15 Body Scale Value iiii. Sorority CBS: This shows that the majority of participants in the survey consider themselves to be a 4 or 5 on the figure rating scale. Current Body Type (CBS) Sorority Members Frequency Answer Response %

16 Body Scale Value v. Non-Sorority CBS: This shows that the majority of non-sorority members consider themselves a 4 or 5 on the figure rating scale. Current Body Type (CBS) Non-Sorority Frequency Answer Response %

17 vi. All Respondants IBS: This shows that most of the participants wanted to be a 3 or 4 on the figure rating scale. vii. Sorority IBS: Shows that most of the participants in a sorority want to be a 3 or 4 on the figure rating scale.

18 Body Scale Value Ideal Body Type (IBS) Sorority Members Frequency Answer Response % viii. Non-Sorority IBS: Shows most non-sorority women who participated in the survey wanted to be a 3 or 4 on the figure rating scale.

19 Body Scale Value Ideal Body Type (IBS) Non-Sorority Frequency Answer Response % viiii. All Respondants ABS: Shows out of all repondants, most thought men were attracted to the body type that correponds to a 3 or 4 on the figure rating scale.

20 Body Scale Value x. Sorority ABS: Shows women in a sorority who took the survey think men are most attracted to the body type associated with a 3 or 4 on the figure rating scale. Attractive to Men (ABS) Sorority Members Frequency Answer Response %

21 xi. Non-Sorority ABS: Shows that non-sorority respondents thought that men are most attracted to the body type that corresponds to a 3 or 4 on the figure rating scale.