Psychology

The purpose of this research was to test the prediction that exposure to extremely thin celebrity pictures leads to low body-esteem in college aged women resulting in high stress levels, and exposure to more realistic celebrity pictures leads to high body-esteem. Using ANOVA, all the independent variables were compared with the celebritys body type. .  A correlation was performed on all the independent variables as well to establish whether there was any relationship between body esteem, body approval, and stress level.

On the issue of effects on celebrity body approval, the results obtained were as predicted exposure to images of female celebrities with different body types affects the way that participants rate the celebrities bodies. On the effects on body esteem, the hypothesis that was tested was that the body type of the celebrities to which the participants were exposed, affects body esteem. Subsequently, ANOVA was performed to test the prediction. Though it had been hypothesized that body esteem would be lower for the participants considered emaciated celebrities as compared to those who perceived the more realistic celebrity images, the results of the test did not support this hypothesis. On the other hand for the effects on stress, the hypothesis was that women who were exposed to the images of emaciated celebrities would have higher stress levels. However, final the results of the ANOVA test did not hold up this prediction.

To test the correlation across celebrity body approval, stress and body esteem, the hypothesis tested was that body esteem is correlated with stress level in college-aged women. After performing a correlation across all the dependent variables, the results established that body esteem and stress levels were negatively correlated and this was anticipated. Body esteem was marginally correlated to celebrity body approval which was not expected. Hence, the hypothesis in this study was very relevant and correct.

Derrick, Gabriel, and Tippin (2008), in their research study on the impact of modeling, established that women especially at young ladies- with low self esteem can enhance it through parasocial relationships. In their research model, they conducted three studies by sampling one hundred undergraduate students for each to determine the relationship between parasocial relationships and self esteem. They results of their research study ascertained that parasocial relationships brings about self-enhancing benefits to individuals with low self esteem.

In another study, Smeesters, Mussweiler, and Mandel (2010) carried out research study to determine how different individuals feel when they are exposed to watching thin andor heavy media models. The results of their study established that self-esteem among women with normal body mass index changes positively andor negatively depending on whether or not the models they are exposed to is either heavy or thin. Hence, they concluded that women with normal body mass index have higher self-esteem when exposed to both thin and extremely heavy models. Reason being that they feel being similar to moderately-thin models as opposed to experiencing negative attitude towards heavy models.

However, self-esteem among women with normal body mass index was very low when they were exposed to both moderately-heavy and extremely-thin models (Smeesters et al, 2010).  This is attributed to the perception that such people feel very similar to both the moderately-heavy models and dissimilar to the extremely-thin models. It is thus important to note how exposure to models in the media influences self-esteem in women and especially those that are overweight andor underweight.