UC Merced

There is considerable support in the literature for the proposition that exposure to portrayals of idealized bodies in advertising has various negative effects on men�s and women�s self and body image. Yet, there is also evidence for self-enhancement effects of these advertisements. This disparity in findings suggests the possibility that not all men and women react to advertising portrayals in the same way and invites a careful study of potential moderators of exposure effects. The proposed research aimed to explore three types of moderators of media exposure which address limitations of prior work. First, we studied these effects in populations that were largely ignored before: men and ethnically diverse individuals (demographic moderators). Second, we investigated whether personality traits might reveal important differences in men�s and women�s vulnerability to media exposure to idealized body portrayals (personal moderator). Third, we have attempted to explore subtler differences in the exposure effects by using new implicit methodology, enabling us to measure automatic processing of advertising content (methodological moderator). Using implicit measures as opposed to explicit measures is an important contribution because implicit measures are free from many of the limitations of self-reports. These contributions were investigated via four experimental and one correlational study. Results revealed that in some cases ethnic-minority men and women respond differently to idealized body portrayals in advertising than do White individuals. In accordance with prior work done almost exclusively in White samples, White men and women experienced negative effects of exposure on their self-esteem and body perception, whereas Asian and Hispanic (men only) individuals experienced self-enhancing effects, suggesting that these individuals engaged in a �fantasy� rather than upward social comparisons. These findings have important health implications and may be helpful in designing targeted interventions and media campaigns focusing on ethnic-minority men and women suffering from eating disorders. Turning to personality, even though we found that personality traits (extraversion, conscientiousness, emotional stability) were closely related to self-esteem (directly) and body dissatisfaction (indirectly), we did not find a strong support for their moderating role. Finally, this dissertation provided some evidence that implicit measures record subtler differences in exposure effects as compared to explicit ones. In conclusion, we provided more support for self-enhancing effects than negative effects of exposure, which were revealed by incorporating moderating variables (demographic and methodological). Implications for future work in this area are highlighted and discussed.