Women's Self-evaluations Research Articles

Disordered eating links to body-relevant and body-irrelevant influences on self-evaluation

We investigated eating- and weight-related correlates of self-evaluation influences (SEIs) and examined the extent to which such SEIs can be both over- and undervalued and the extent to which measurement strategy affects SEIs. A female undergraduate sample (n=549) completed 3 measures of SEI importance and questionnaires assessing disordered eating (DE), body mass index (BMI), and depression. SEI measures included Likert scale, rank ordering, and pairwise forced choice; a subset (n=62) also completed the Shape- and Weight-Based Self-Esteem Scale (SAWBS). Only rank ordering, forced choice, and SAWBS constrain choices among SEIs, such that prioritizing one SEI necessarily deprioritizes another, which reflects real-world restrictions on individuals' allotment of time and energy (e.g., spending hours exercising daily necessarily reduces time available for other activities). By any measure, women with DE overvalue body shape and weight. The constraining measures reveal systematic undervaluation of intelligence and achievement among women with DE and an enhanced effect of DE on the overvaluation of weight and on the undervaluation of being a good person among those with higher BMI. Depressed women's self-evaluations overemphasize appearance and underemphasize interpersonal relationships. Self-evaluations of women with DE are marked by both over- and undervaluation of relevant SEIs; the overvaluation of shape and weight in DE may be associated with costs. Future use of constraining measures, such as forced choice or rank ordering, may enhance our understanding of both over- and underemphasized SEIs among women with DE.

Black Women's Body Image: An Analysis of Culture-Specific Influences

A review of the literature on racial differences in body image in Black and White women indicates body image dissatisfaction is more common in White females than Black females. However, Black women are not protected from body image issues. Research on body image concerns specifically related to Black women is limited. The present study involves focus group and individual interviews conducted with 16 Black women. Data were analyzed using qualitative methodology. Results indicate 6 major themes, with shapely and curvaceous ideal body image standards within the Black community as the most prevalent theme across data sources. Therapeutic implications emphasize recognition of culture-specific ideal standards of beauty, as well as the influence of external factors such as men, family, peers, and media on Black women's self-evaluations.

Feeling body dissatisfied after viewing thin-ideal pictures is mediated by self-activation

The present study sought to investigate the influence of self-activation on body and weight satisfaction in restrained and unrestrained eaters, after exposure to thin-ideal images. Restrained eaters ( n = 39) and unrestrained eaters ( n = 40) were randomly assigned to a self-activation manipulation versus a control manipulation. After the manipulation, all participants were exposed to eight thin-ideal images. Measures of state body and weight satisfaction and of social comparison tendencies were assessed throughout the experiment. Self-activated restrained eaters showed a significant decrease in body and weight satisfaction after exposure to thin-ideal images, compared to restrained eaters who were not self-activated. In unrestrained eaters, the self-activation manipulation did not have any effect on body or weight dissatisfaction. In conclusion, exposure to fashion models only had a negative influence on women's self-evaluations when two conditions were met: (1) the participant was ‘self-activated’ and (2) the participant classified as a restrained eater.

What about men? Social comparison and the effects of media images on body and self-esteem.

Research has consistently shown that exposure to ideal female images negatively influences women's self-evaluations (e.g., Brown, Novick, Lord, & Richards, 1992; Henderson-King, Henderson-King, & Hoffman, 2001). However, minimal research has examined the effects of media-portrayed male images on men

On models and vases: Body dissatisfaction and proneness to social comparison effects.

When and why do media-portrayed physically attractive women affect perceivers' self-evaluations? In 6 studies, the authors showed that whether such images affect self-evaluations depends jointly on target features and perceiver features. In Study 1, exposure to a physically attractive target, compared with exposure to an equally attractive model, lowered women's self-evaluations. Study 2 showed that body-dissatisfied women, to a greater extent than body-satisfied women, report that they compare their bodies with other women's bodies. In Study 3, body-dissatisfied women, but not body-satisfied women, were affected by both attractive models and nonmodels. Furthermore, in Study 4, it was body-dissatisfied women, rather than body-satisfied women, who evaluated themselves negatively after exposure to a thin (versus a fat) vase. The authors replicated this result in Study 5 by manipulating, instead of measuring, body dissatisfaction. Finally, Study 6 results suggested that body dissatisfaction increases proneness to social comparison effects because body dissatisfaction increases self-activation.

Shame and its psychopathologic correlates in two women’s health problems: Binge eating disorder and vulvodynia

Shame is thought to be a ubiquitous and destructive psychological process associated with psychiatric and medical conditions. This study examined its nature in two contrasting health problems that influence women's self-evaluations of their bodies and attractiveness, namely an eating disorder (a psychiatric disorder with medical implications) or vulvodynia (i.e., vulvar pain; a newly identified medical condition with psychiatric implications). A community sample of adult women without medical conditions served as an additional comparison group. Participants were 203 adult females: 72 with DSM-IV-defined Binge Eating Disorder (BED), 57 with vulvodynia, and 74 non-patient controls. The three study groups differed significantly: the BED group reported greater shame than the vulvodynia group, and the BED and vulvodynia groups reported greater shame than the control group. Higher levels of shame were associated with higher levels of symptomatic functioning within each group.

Culture, Cohort, and Cosmetic Surgery

ABSTRACT This paper theorizes a parallel between idealized images of women in the media and the mainstreaming of cosmetic surgery as commonplace in our culture. The paper tracks images of women in film, television, and advertising from 1940 to the present and uses them as guides to understanding and interpreting appraisals contemporary women make of their bodies. Data are presented from 24 women, ages 29 to 75, who participated in a pilot study examining social, psychological, and developmental factors that precipitated cosmetic surgery. Women's self-evaluations were consistent with media depictions of women during subjects' adolescent and early-adult years. Age, or more specifically, cohort membership, determined assessments of body-image. The fact that body-satisfaction decreased proportionately with age in the women sampled is credited to the progressive license taken by the media in depicting female nudity, graphic sex, and violence against women.

Effects of Preferential and Meritorious Selection on Performance: An Examination of Intuitive and Self-Handicapping Perspectives

Research has documented pervasive adverse consequences of preferential selection for women's self-evaluations of ability and performance. However, virtually no research has examined the effects of selection processes on actual performance. It was theorized that the effects of preferential and meritorious selection on performance are moderated by task conceptualization. Females were told that they were assigned to a position because of either merit (they purportedly passed a qualifying test) or preference (they were female) and that task performance required either effort or inherent capability. Preferentially selected women performed better when they believed the task required capability rather than effort; meritoriously selected individuals displayed the opposite pattern. In addition, preferentially selected subjects evaluated specific components of their performance effectiveness more poorly than meritoriously selected subjects. Self-evaluations of overall performance were unaffected by the manipulations. Results are interpreted using research on self-handicapping and recipient reactions to aid.

Gender and the influence of evaluations on self-assessments in achievement settings.

This article reviews evidence for a gender difference in responsiveness to others' evaluations in achievement situations. Studies show that women's self-evaluations are more responsive to the valence of the evaluative feedback they receive than are men's. A number of possible explanations for this effect are then discussed, with the best evidence pointing to men's and women's differing construals of the informational value of others' evaluations in such situations. Research on the behavioral consequences of women's lower status as well as on children's experiences with evaluative feedback provides potential explanations for this effect. A more proximal explanation, however, lies in men's and women's different approaches to evaluative achievement situations. Men may be particularly likely to respond to the competitive nature of evaluative achievement and hence to adopt a self-confident approach that leads them to deny the informational value of others' evaluations. Women may be particularly likely to approach such situations as opportunities to gain information about their abilities.

Mirror Images: Effects of the Standard of Beauty on the Self- and Body-Esteem of Women Exhibiting Varying Levels of Bulimic Symptoms

Authors in the field of eating disorders suggest that increasing preferences for thin body shapes in women may be related to recent increases in the prevalence of eating-related problems. Using a social comparison theory paradigm, this study looked at the impact of exposure to slides of thin, average, and oversize models on the self-evaluations of 162 women exhibiting varying levels of self-reported bulimic symptoms. Contrary to the author's expectations, exposure to thin models was related to lower self-evaluations regardless of level of bulimic symptoms. Women reporting high levels of bulimic symptoms did, however, report a greater amount of pressure to be thin coming from media, peers, and family than did women reporting lower levels of symptoms. Results suggest that media have an impact on women's self-evaluations regardless of their level of bulimic symptoms. Implications are discussed.

Sex differences in reactions to evaluative feedback

Two studies tested the influence of various types of verbal evaluative feedback men's and women's self-evaluations of their performance in achievenment situations. We tested a theory that women perceive evaluative feedback, particularly negative feedback, to be more informative about their abilities than do men. Because of this, women's self-assessments of their abilities are more straightforwardly influenced by evaluative feedback than are men's. In contrast, men take a more self-promotional approach to evaluative situations, and therefore are more selective in their responses to feedback. Results from our questionnaire study showed that women's self-evaluations were influenced by both positive and negative evaluative statements. Men allowed positive feedback to influence them more than negative feedback, and were less influenced overall by negative feedback than women. Furthermore, women reported that evaluative feedback, particularly negative feedback, contained more information relevant to their abilities than men. Our laboratory study showed that women's actual self-evaluations were impacted differently by positive and negative feedback, whereas men's were not. In addition, we found some evidence to indicate that women were more negatively influenced by feedback that was positively toned, yet irrelevant with respect to their performance, than men. This finding underscores the fact that the focus, and not just the valence, of evaluative feedback plays an important role in men's and women's responses to it.

Socialization into Parenthood: A Longitudinal Study of the Development of Self-Evaluations

This study examines change in women's self-evaluations in the maternal role from before to after the birth of a couple's first child. A few weeks after delivery, women's average ratings of themselves had dropped from levels observed during pregnancy, but their ratings rebounded by one year postpartum. In the first few weeks after the birth, relative positions in the distribution of self-evaluations were stable among middle-class women, and did not respond to other family roles (husband, infant). Working-class women manifested considerable change in the relative position of their self-evaluations over the same period. The working-class women's self-evaluations also seemed to depend on their ratings of the infant in the first few postpartum weeks, whereas the middle-class women's self-evaluations did not. At the end of one year, middleand working-class data could be pooled. Women's self-ratings responded to their rating of the infant at that time. At one year, husband's involvement in child care had a negative effect on women's self-ratings. The findings of this study are consistent with theories that middle-class persons fashion parenting roles for themselves more individualistically than do persons lower in the stratification system.

Educational Status and the Structure of Subjective Well-Being in Men and Women

This study used confirmatory factor analysis with national survey data to explore how educational status affects the criteria men and women use to evaluate their subjective well-being. A recently developed six-factor model of subjective mental health (Bryant and Veroff, 1984) was used to evaluate separately the educational differences in the structure of well-being for men and women. Although the structure of women's self-evaluations did not differ significantly according to educational status, college-educated men structured their self-evaluations differently than did either grade schoolor high school-educated men. Specifically, college-educated men expressedfeelings of vulnerability and reactions to stress in more psychological terms, such as feelings of nervous breakdown and anxiety, whereas grade schooland high school-educated men defined these judgments more exclusively in terms of physical symptoms. In addition, dissatisfaction and self-doubt were more indicative of uncertainty toward the future among college-educated men than among either grade schoolor high school-educated men. It is argued that college may sensitize men to mental health issues and may thereby broaden the realm of psychological criteria that they consider relevant for their self-evaluations. Because women, in contrast, may already be sensitive to these issues due to sex-role socialization, higher education may have relatively little structural impact on their subjective well-being and may instead influence other aspects of adjustment.

Dimensions of Subjective Mental Health in American Men and Women

Confirmatory factor analyses were used to map dimensions of subjective mental health underlying 25 indexes of well-being and distress assessed in a 1976 national representative survey of adults. Partially confirming hypotheses, six dominant factors (Unhappiness, Lack of Gratification, Strain, Feelings of Vulnerability, Lack of Self-Confidence, and Uncertainty) emergedfor both men and women. Comparative analyses revealed that the six-factor model derived for men fit the data of both sexes, equally well. Thus, this model provides a means of assessing men's and women's self-evaluations comparably. Multiple regression analyses demonstrated the divergent validity of the dimensions in the model by differentially relating certain demographic and behavioral measures to the various factors. Four critical theoretical issues were discussed as underlying measures of subjective mental health: affective orientation (positive vs. negative), object offocus (world vs. self), time referent (past vs. present vs. future), and mode of reaction (spontaneous vs. reflective).

Women's reactions to discrimination from members of the same or opposite sex

The effects upon women's self-evaluations of experiencing varying severity of failure in interpersonal competition against male vs. female opponents were explored. The results supported the hypothesis that self-esteem in women is more vulnerable to interpersonal rejection from men as opposed to other women. Specifically, subjects reported lower self-esteem when severe failure was due to the actions of alleged, male opponents rather than female ones. Also, severe failure elicited less favorable self-evaluations than mild failure only when the female subjects confronted male opponents. Finally, contrary to a defensive self-presentation hypothesis, subjects did not respond to discrimination from men by presenting themselves as being discrepant from the stereotype of women. Instead, subjects who interpreted their failure as reflecting prejudice on the part of men evaluated themselves more favorably on positive traits underlying the female stereotype.