TY - JOUR
T1 - The effect of viewing challenging “reality check” Instagram comments on women's body image
AU - Tiggemann, Marika
AU - Velissaris, Vasiliki Georgia
PY - 2020/6
Y1 - 2020/6
N2 - One increasing trend on social media is the posting of challenging or “reality check” comments about idealized photos of thin and attractive women. The aim of the present study was to experimentally investigate the effect of viewing such reality check comments after a positive appearance comment on young women's body image. Participants were 192 women aged 17–25 years who were randomly assigned to view Instagram images accompanied by no comment, a positive appearance comment, or a reality check comment plus the positive appearance comment. In contrast to prediction, viewing positive appearance comments did not elicit more body dissatisfaction than viewing images with no comments. As predicted, however, adding a reality check comment did reduce body dissatisfaction relative to the positive appearance comment alone. It was concluded that making and viewing reality check comments provides a potential way for women to mitigate some of the negative effect of Instagram imagery.
AB - One increasing trend on social media is the posting of challenging or “reality check” comments about idealized photos of thin and attractive women. The aim of the present study was to experimentally investigate the effect of viewing such reality check comments after a positive appearance comment on young women's body image. Participants were 192 women aged 17–25 years who were randomly assigned to view Instagram images accompanied by no comment, a positive appearance comment, or a reality check comment plus the positive appearance comment. In contrast to prediction, viewing positive appearance comments did not elicit more body dissatisfaction than viewing images with no comments. As predicted, however, adding a reality check comment did reduce body dissatisfaction relative to the positive appearance comment alone. It was concluded that making and viewing reality check comments provides a potential way for women to mitigate some of the negative effect of Instagram imagery.
KW - Body dissatisfaction
KW - Body image
KW - Comments
KW - Instagram
KW - Reality check
KW - Social media
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85084267332&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/DP150101295
U2 - 10.1016/j.bodyim.2020.04.004
DO - 10.1016/j.bodyim.2020.04.004
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85084267332
SN - 1740-1445
VL - 33
SP - 257
EP - 263
JO - Body Image
JF - Body Image
ER -