481 research proposal
TRANSCRIPT
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Group 3:Ashley CrossCorby HillSara KalishCaitlin MorrisStephanie Powell
Advertising 481
22 September 2006
Project Proposal
From television commercials to radio to print ads, advertising has defined the
meaning of perfection. Most notably, advertising dictates what to eat, what to wear,
where to go and who to be seen with. At the same time that childhood obesity is at an all
time high, women in our society are facing advertising's idealized portrayal of unrealistic
bodies. Anorexia nervosa, bulimia and a multitude of other self inflicted diseases are
running rampant in societies nationwide. Our group was intrigued by the relationship
between women and advertising. College aged women often find themselves as the target
of many advertisements. At a time when women are told to define themselves and
mature, advertisers recognize their vulnerability and use this to their advantage. Through
thorough research of a variety of investigative journals, we plan to illustrate the
relationship between advertisements and women's body image.
Advertising has changed the way people consume goods and services. Since the
boom of the 1920s, the advertising industry has tried to convince people why they need to
purchase the newest product on the market. Even more astounding, the advertising
industry has succeeded in changing the way they people feel about themselves. In
magazines and newspapers, women often seek out images of thin models, even when
they anticipate that the images will make them feel badly (Milkie, 1999). Oddly enough,
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those who have internalized the media ideal, exposure to images featuring this ideal are
likely to activate the comparison process. Because few women can meet the beauty
standards created by this ideal, dissatisfaction with one’s own appearance is a likely
outcome of this comparison process (Engeln-Maddox, 2005). Through our research we
plan on investigating the thought process of women with different advertisements and
their perceptions about themselves. Knowing that some women actively seek out these
unrealistic images, we plan on investigating why they continue to act with these
mannerisms. Furthermore, we also want to uncover where women look for these images
and at what age they started to do so. Our investigations will look into actions women
have taken to change their image such as diet, plastic surgery and exercise, to see whether
there is a relationship between dissatisfaction with body image and steps taken to change
it.
Because the effects of advertising have such an impact on many women’s lives, in
the past there have been many researchers who are asking the very questions that we
hope to find answers to in our experiment. One such experiment that was conducted by
Gayle R. Bessenof (2006) focused on how the media affects society’s everyday
perception of themselves, more specifically the damaging effects on women. She focused
on how the thin ideal in many advertisements has an affect on women and the way they
compare themselves to others and how it may create self-discrepancies in many women.
The research was conducted by exposing some participants to fashion advertisements
with thin, beautiful models as primers, while others were exposed to neutral
advertisements. The participants were then asked to answer questionnaires about what
feelings they experienced while they were looking through the advertisements. After the
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experiment many of the researcher’s assumptions were correct about the effect that the
thin-ideal has on women. Bessenoff found that the women who were exposed to the thin-
ideal advertisements were much more likely to experience feelings about depression,
weight concerns, low self-esteem, and bad moods than the women who were shown
neutral ads before the questionnaire (Bessenoff). Very much like Bessenoff, we are
interested in how advertisements affect the self-esteem of a woman. The previous
research that she has conducted gives us the ability to have some insight about how thin-
idealized advertisements affect the feelings of women.
The average body size of the idealized, glamorous supermodel is often more than
20% underweight (Brown/Dittmar, 2005). Since women today are constantly comparing
themselves to these super thin models, it is no wonder that eating disorders and low self-
esteem in women are at an all time high. But exactly how much do advertisements affect
the way women feel about themselves and the way they live their lives through dieting,
clothing choices, exercise, etc? Previous studies show that viewing thin models increases
weight-related anxiety to an extent that women internalize the thin ideal, and that this
anxiety is heightened with the duration of the viewing time (Brown/Dittmar, 2005). In an
experiment done by Brown and Dittmar, 75 women were exposed to either neutral
advertisements (no models) or to thin models, at either low or high attention, manipulated
by the exposure time and focus instructions. This article aimed to extend the
understanding of why women come to feel bad about their own bodies after exposure to
thin models. Since we are studying how advertisements affect women’s body image and
perception of themselves, this article will be a great reference since it shows the
correlation between media exposure that contain ultra-thin ideals to increased body-
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dissatisfaction and eating disorders. Since many studies have shown that ultra-thin
models have an effect on women, we plan to investigate how these advertisements affect
women after planting an unrealistic expectation of perfection into their heads.
Another study we found focuses on the younger range for the target audience of
eighteen to twenty year olds is a relevant article for the research that we are planning on
conducting, and this can help gain insight into what possible age differences will have on
our results. There is also a focus in the article on younger teens, this can be utilized in the
research because it provides information about what possible influences our participants
have already encountered in their lives.
They note how advertising emphasizes the theme in culture of girl’s bodies as
“objects”. The study states that these girls are using these models as a point of
comparison, and that these unattainable images will result in lowered self value. This is
the point that we wish to prove in our research that viewing these ads can lower a girl’s
self esteem.
The subjects were chosen from a Midwestern, middle class background, and were
fourth, sixth, and eighth graders. This is relevant to our research because we hope to
discover if our participants were affected at that age. The girls in the experiment were
shown ads from teen magazines. They were primed to look at the ads in one of five ways
as part of: self evaluation, self improvement, and self enhancement 1(finding ways she is
prettier than the model), self enhancement 2(discount beauty of the models) and no
priming at all. The results were that in sixth and eight graders self evaluation caused a
more negative body perception especially after the self evaluation priming, whereas the
self enhancement had no significant effect. The fourth graders were the opposite, they
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saw the skinny models in ads as the opposite of what they wanted to be, they wished to
“grow bigger” not remain small, and their self enhancement exercises boosted their views
on their body perception. In the older girls though there was evidence that the motive of
self evaluation was the most harmful to body image.
The objective of the Monro and Huon (2006) experiment was to determine the
effects of media-portrayed idealized images on young women’s body shame and
appearance anxiety, and to see if the effects depend on advertisement type and on
participant self-objectification. While there was no differences between advertisements
with body-related products and without body-related products, their results indicated that
appearance anxiety increased after viewing advertisements featuring any idealized
images. One of the most interesting things that was discovered was that the participants’
body shame increased after exposure to idealized images (Monro and Huon, 2006). The
study supported the idea that idealized images are an influential source of pressure to
meet the thin ideal (Monro and Huon, 2006).
We chose this project to study further the idea that exposure to
advertisements influenced women’s thoughts before and after encountering the
advertisements. We want to design surveys and an experiment that will help us learn
who is more susceptible, like women who workd out or women who read fashion
magazines. We hope to discover how long they have been affected by such
advertisements and for how long they have been comparing themselves to the women in
these ads. The research findings pointed to the same idea that women were greatly
affected by these advertisements. Knowing that some women actively seek out these
unrealistic images, we plan to investigate why they continue to act this way.
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Furthermore, we want to investigate into where women look for these images and when
they started looking for these images. Our investigations will look more to college
women in particular. We want to explore the added pressures, like being on their own and
finding a job, that they face and this impact on their body image. We want to look at how
body issues can impact them in a critical stage in life, because they are trying to be
successful, trying to find a mate, trying to balance everything as well as their body while
they face other girls and ads on campus everyday. Our study wants to focus on the
college women and how their personalities and daily activities are influenced by these
media ideals.
All of our research indicates a relationship between advertising and women's body
image. Through this project we plan to survey college aged women, age 18-22, about the
way they view themselves and how the media has influenced these perceptions. In our
experiment we will show women different images of models in advertisements and
investigate the relationship between these images and the way they perceive themselves
in society. Because we are a group of five female investigators, we plan on using only
female test subjects for our research experiment and as well as for our survey. Through
the survey we hope to understand if things, such as diet, exercising, magazines, and
personal opinions, influence women. We hope to better understand the way advertisers
influence women's perception of themselves. In addition, we hope that through the
completion of this project, women will understand the unrealistic expectations of women
and be more accepting of themselves.
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Works Cited
Bessenoff, Gayle R. “Can the Media Affect Us? Social Comparison, Self-Discrepancy,
and the Thin Ideal.” Psychology of Women Quarterly. Vol. 30. pp. 239-251.
Blackwell Publishing, Inc.
Brown, Amy and Helga Dittmar. Think “Thin” and Feel Bad: The Role of Appearance
Schema Activation, Attention Level, and Thin-Ideal Internalization for Young
Women’s Responses to Ultra-Thin Media Ideals. Journal of Social and Clinical
Psychology, Vol. 24, No. 8, 2005, pp. 1088-1113.
Engeln-Maddox, Renee. Cognitive Responses to idealized Media Images of Women: The
Relationship of Social Comparison and Critical Processing to Body Image
Disturbance in College Women. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, Vol.
24, November 8, 2005, pp. 1114-1138.
Huon, Gail, PhD and Fiona Monro. “Media-Portrayed Idealized Images , Body Shame,
and Appearance Anxiety.” International Journal of Eating Disorders 38 (2005):
85-90.
Martin, Mary C. And James W. Gentry. “Stuck in the Model Trap: The effects of
beautiful models in ads on female pre adolescents and adolescents.” Journal of
Advertising . Spring 1997. V26 N2, p 19-33