Can appearance conversations explain differences between gay and heterosexual men's body dissatisfaction?

Men's body dissatisfaction is prevalent and a serious health concern as it is associated with negative outcomes including depression, disordered eating, and anabolic steroid abuse. Gay men are particularly vulnerable to body dissatisfaction, perhaps due to heightened sociocultural appearance pressures experienced in gay subculture. Appearance conversations represent an underresearched, but potentially potent, mechanism of appearance pressures. The current study explored whether differences in the frequency of engaging in appearance conversations accounted for differences in body dissatisfaction and associated risk factors among gay and heterosexual men. A purposeful sample of gay (N = 77, Mage = 32.57) and heterosexual (N = 78, Mage = 25.30) men were recruited from community organizations in the United Kingdom. Participants completed an online questionnaire assessing appearance conversations, body dissatisfaction, appearance orientation, and internalization of appearance ideals. Gay men reported more frequent engagement in positive and negative appearance conversations and greater body dissatisfaction, appearance orientation, and general internalization than heterosexual men. Moreover, frequency of appearance conversations mediated the relationship between sexuality and the majority of study variables, including body dissatisfaction (ps<.05). These findings suggest that appearance conversations are an important sociocultural influence on male body image and that they are important in understanding the differences between gay and heterosexual men's body dissatisfaction and associated risk factors. © 2013 American Psychological Association

The Wikipedia imaginaire: a new media history beyond Wikipedia.org (2001–2022)

This paper presents a media biography of Wikipedia’s data that focuses on the interpretative flexibility of Wikipedia and digital knowledge between the years 2001 and 2022. To do so, I not only follow a strand of media historians who argue that the imagination is an important component for understanding how media change, but I also argue that Wikipedia’s data has been incorporated, re-imagined, and repurposed by sociotechnical projects in ways that have often been side-lined despite acting as the boundary lines of what is considered digital knowledge. It combines Patrice Flichy’s longitudinal theory of technical development as an imaginaire, Frederik Lesage and Simone Natale’s historical approach of biographies of media with an analysis of the interpretative flexibility of new media. Through an eclectic corpus of project websites, new articles, press releases, and blogs, I demonstrate the unexpected ways the online encyclopedia has permeated throughout digital culture over the past twenty years through projects like the Citizendium, Everipedia, Google Search and AI software. As a result of this analysis, I explain how this array of meanings and materials constitutes the Wikipedia imaginaire: a collective activity of sociotechnical development that is fundamental to understanding the ideological and utopian meaning of knowledge with digital culture

Shuttle/spacelab MMAP/electromagnetic environment experiment phase B definition study

Progress made during the first five months of the Phase B definition study for the MMAP/Electromagnetic Environment Experiment (EEE) was described. An antenna/receiver assembly has been defined and sized for stowing in a three pallet bay area in the shuttle. Six scanning modes for the assembly are analyzed and footprints for various antenna sizes are plotted. Mission profiles have been outlined for a 400 km height, 57 deg inclination angle, circular orbit. Viewing time over 7 geographical areas are listed. Shuttle interfaces have been studied to determine what configuration the antenna assembly must have to be shared with other experiments of the Microwave Multi-Applications Payload (MMAP) and to be stowed in the shuttle bay. Other results reported include a frequency plan, a proposed antenna subsystem design, a proposed receiver design, preliminary outlines of the experiment controls and an analysis of on-board and ground data processing schemes

Self Assembled Clusters of Spheres Related to Spherical Codes

We consider the thermodynamically driven self-assembly of spheres onto the surface of a central sphere. This assembly process forms self-limiting, or terminal, anisotropic clusters (N-clusters) with well defined structures. We use Brownian dynamics to model the assembly of N-clusters varying in size from two to twelve outer spheres, and free energy calculations to predict the expected cluster sizes and shapes as a function of temperature and inner particle diameter. We show that the arrangements of outer spheres at finite temperatures are related to spherical codes, an ideal mathematical sequence of points corresponding to densest possible sphere packings. We demonstrate that temperature and the ratio of the diameters of the inner and outer spheres dictate cluster morphology and dynamics. We find that some N-clusters exhibit collective particle rearrangements, and these collective modes are unique to a given cluster size N. We present a surprising result for the equilibrium structure of a 5-cluster, which prefers an asymmetric square pyramid arrangement over a more symmetric arrangement. Our results suggest a promising way to assemble anisotropic building blocks from constituent colloidal spheres.Comment: 15 pages, 10 figure

Light except Lupita: The representation of Black women in magazines

Psychology is dominated by White Westerners. Subsequently researchers have minimised or ignored Black women’s body dissatisfaction. This study sought to account for the intersection of racism and body dissatisfaction by coding the representation of Black women, the number of appearance adverts and articles across 8 issues of mainstream women’s magazines (Elle, Vogue) and Black women’s magazines (Essence and Ebony) from 2015/16. The majority of Black women featured in the magazines (N = 539) were young (83 per cent) slim (62 per cent), had light skin (66 per cent) and straight hair (60 per cent). Compared to the Black women’s magazines, Black women were rarely represented in the mainstream women’s magazines (N = 64, 11 per cent) and when they were represented generally had straighter hair, narrow noses and lighter skin tones. This study underscores the need for psychology, including body dissatisfaction researchers, to recognise (and challenge) the intersections of racism with other impacts to wellbeing including body dissatisfaction

Preliminary results from breeding experiments with Finnsheep in Poland

Polish Lowland (PL) ewes were mated to Finnsheep x East Friesian (EF) F1 rams to create a synthetic dam line (66), and to Polish Heath x EF F1 rams to create another synthetic dam line (77). Performance of both groups were recorded and compared to purebred PL (88). The numbers of animals in the composite lines were too small for statistical analyses and conclusive results. Contrary to expectations line 77 excelled line 88 in lambing rate by 3 %, while line 66 was inferior to it. In litter size, both composite lines slightly excelled line 88. Line 66 excelled line 88 in lamb survival, while line 77 was a little inferior to it. In fleece weights, line 66 was equal with line 88, but line 77 lagged 24 % behind. Both of the composite lines excelled line 88 in daily gain by 10 %, being rather similar to each other

Appearance concerns in later life: Do they really exist?

In Western society, where youth and beauty are given high status, older people can often feel pressured to adopt appearance-enhancing strategies, such as using anti-ageing products. Those who invest time and money into their image often do so to show they are coping well with later life and gain respect from others. Claire Hamlet examines the concept of successful ageing in relation to appearanc