The developmental effects of media-ideal internalization and self-objectification processes on adolescents’ negative body-feelings, dietary restraint, and binge eating

Despite accumulated experimental evidence of the negative effects of exposure to media-idealized images, the degree to which body image, and eating related disturbances are caused by media portrayals of gendered beauty ideals remains controversial. On the basis of the most up-to-date meta-analysis of experimental studies indicating that media-idealized images have the most harmful and substantial impact on vulnerable individuals regardless of gender (i.e., “internalizers” and “self-objectifiers”), the current longitudinal study examined the direct and mediated links posited in objectification theory among media-ideal internalization, self-objectification, shame and anxiety surrounding the body and appearance, dietary restraint, and binge eating. Data collected from 685 adolescents aged between 14 and 15 at baseline (47 % males), who were interviewed and completed standardized measures annually over a 3-year period, were analyzed using a structural equation modeling approach. Results indicated that media-ideal internalization predicted later thinking and scrutinizing of one’s body from an external observer’s standpoint (or self-objectification), which then predicted later negative emotional experiences related to one’s body and appearance. In turn, these negative emotional experiences predicted subsequent dietary restraint and binge eating, and each of these core features of eating disorders influenced each other. Differences in the strength of these associations across gender were not observed, and all indirect effects were significant. The study provides valuable information about how the cultural values embodied by gendered beauty ideals negatively influence adolescents’ feelings, thoughts and behaviors regarding their own body, and on the complex processes involved in disordered eating. Practical implications are discussed

Understanding Hope: A Review of Measurement and Construct Validity Research

Hope has been discussed by philosophers, theologians, educators, and scientists, to name but a few groups of people, over the preceding two millennia. During the last 15 years, C. R. Snyder and his colleagues at the University of Kansas have developed a theory and associated measures of the hope construct that have received extensive, detailed attention both within and outside the field of psychology. In this chapter, we describe Snyder\u27s hope model and some of the research findings that have supported the validity of this construct. Beginning with a conceptual definition of hope, we move to relevant findings about the usefulness of hope in the lives of individuals in various life arenas. We describe measures developed for assessing hope in children and adults, as well as current issues associated with the validity of hope measurement. Finally, we discuss future directions for further investigation of hope

The Social Appearance Anxiety Scale in Italian adolescent populations: Construct validation and group discrimination in community and clinical eating disorders samples

Anxiety in situations where one’s overall appearance (including body shape) may be negatively evaluated is hypothesized to play a central role in Eating Disorders (EDs) and in their co-occurrence with Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD). Three studies were conducted among community (N = 1995) and clinical (N = 703) ED samples of 11- to 18-year-old Italian girls and boys to (a) evaluate the psychometric qualities and measurement equivalence/invariance (ME/I) of the Social Appearance Anxiety (SAA) Scale (SAAS) and (b) determine to what extent SAA or other situational domains of social anxiety related to EDs distinguish adolescents with an ED only from those with SAD. Results upheld the one-factor structure and ME/I of the SAAS across samples, gender, age categories, and diagnostic status (i.e., ED participants with and without comorbid SAD). The SAAS demonstrated high internal consistency and 3-week test–retest reliability. The strength of the inter-relationships between SAAS and measures of body image, teasing about appearance, ED symptoms, depression, social anxiety, avoidance, and distress, as well as the ability of SAAS to discriminate community adolescents with high and low levels of ED symptoms and community participants from ED participants provided construct validity evidence. Only SAA strongly differentiated adolescents with any ED from those with comorbid SAD (23.2 %). Latent mean comparisons across all study groups were performed and discussed