First Name:
Elizabeth
Last Name:
Wallace
Major Department:
Psychology
Thesis Director:
Lisa Emery
Date of Thesis:
May 2013
The present study attempted to replicate and extend previous research conducted by Unterhalter, Farrell, & Mohr (2007), which investigated whether men and women display memory biases that are consistent with gender-specific body image concerns. To determine whether exposure to media imagines of ideal body shape influence people's cognitive models of body image (e.g., Thompson, Heinberg, Altabe, & Tantleff-Dunn, S., 1999), a priming condition was added to Unterhalter et al.'s paradigm. Participants either viewed advertisements that were either unrelated to body-image, or that portrayed both the male and female media portrayal of ideal body types, then completed a free-recall memory test for positive and negative, weight- and muscle-related words. The results showed that each gender better remembered gender specific body-concern specific words, replicating Unterhalter et al. (2007). Unlike the prior study, however, participants remembered more positive than negative words, with no significant gender differences in this effect. Priming participants with advertising images that reflected ideal body types appeared to cause people to remember more weight than muscle words, however this effect was not influenced by gender. The results suggest that men and women's body image schemas reflect a different emphasis on weight and muscularity, but that short-term exposure to media images primes people to think about weight more than muscularity.