Does Gratitude Induction Buffer the Adverse Effect of Thin Ideal Media Exposure on Women’s Body Image?

Research output: Contribution to journalCommentary

Abstract

Strategies for inducing a global state of gratitude have been found to buffer females from body dissatisfaction triggered by still media images portraying the ideal body. This study extends such research by comparing a global gratitude induction strategy (GG) with a gratitude towards self induction strategy (GS), and by using video media exposure in a between groups repeated measures experimental design. Females (N = 174 recruited, N = 99 retained) participated in a “Media Preferences Study.” They completed measures of body satisfaction and body size discrepancy (current vs. ideal and current vs. opposite sex attractive), embedded with distractor measures, before the experiment. Participants either wrote about their top valued personal characteristic, and how it has been helpful (GS), listed all of the things in their life for which they were grateful (GG), or completed a distraction task (control). Then, they viewed a commercial portraying a thin, attractive female and completed a survey about the video. After, they completed the same measures of body satisfaction and body size discrepancy for a second time. It was predicted that participants in the control condition would experience deleterious effects of media exposure and that participants in the two gratitude conditions would be buffered and show little change in state measures of body image. Indeed, when the two gratitude conditions were combined, results showed a buffering effect of gratitude induction, compared to increased body discrepancy (current vs. attractive) for the control group participants. Although the GS was predicted to be a more powerful buffer, both gratitude induction strategies performed equivalently.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)7-26
Number of pages20
JournalNorth American Journal of Psychology
Volume24
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - 2022

Keywords

  • body image
  • body satisfaction
  • gratitude
  • media

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