A randomized controlled trial investigating two protective filtering strategies to mitigate the effects of beauty-ideal media imagery on women's body image

Abstract

Recent research has shown that women with a positive body image engage in a process called protective filtering—whereby they ‘filter in’ information that can promote and protect their positive body image, and ‘filter out’ information that could be harmful. In this study, we investigated two protective filtering strategies and whether they could mitigate the effects of beauty-ideal media imagery (one particularly pervasive body-image ‘threat’) on women's body image. To do so, we randomized 150 women (Mage = 22.05) to complete an exercise familiarizing them with one of two protective filtering strategies (i.e., functionality appreciation or personality and values) or with a control topic. Afterward, the participants were exposed to a series of beauty-ideal media images and were prompted to continue to engage in their assigned strategies. Controlling for pretest levels of the respective variables, the repeated measures ANCOVAs showed that the two protective filtering groups reported a more positive body image (i.e., higher body appreciation, functionality appreciation, and appearance satisfaction), both after the familiarization exercise and after the beauty-ideal media exposure, compared to the control group. However, participants across all three groups reported lower positive body image from before to after the beauty-ideal media exposure. The findings for self-objectification were mixed, with all three groups reporting higher self-objectification after beauty-ideal media exposure, but with the functionality appreciation group reporting lower self-objectification compared to the other two groups. Overall, the findings suggest that the protective filtering strategies can confer some benefits to women's body image, but are not foolproof.