Psychology Commons^™

Body-Image Attitudes And Perceptions Among African-Americans And Whites As A Function Of Socioeconomic Class, Christopher Eugene Huffine

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

While many facets of body image have been extensively researched, relatively few studies have examined racial and social class differences in body image. The present paper consists of two studies examining racial and class differences in body image among males and females. Study 1 utilized a national sample of respondents to a 1985 Psychology Today survey to examine racial (Black and White) and educational differences in body image among men and women. Study 2 utilized a smaller sample of Black subjects, half drawn from several Southeastern universities and the other half from non-academic locations in the Tidewater area of Virginia …

Looking At Barbie: Social Comparison Processes And Body Esteem Among Women, Sally Elizabeth Ware

Student Work

In this thesis, three areas are described: the phenomenon of body dissatisfaction among apparently normal-sized women from a sociocultural perspective; social comparison theory, which is proposed to be the mechanism by which the phenomenon operates; and the results of an experiment designed not only to test the nature of the phenomenon itself, but also to test certain components of social comparison theory, such as selection of comparison targets and the role of derogation.

The study reports women’s responses to inescapable social comparison on the attribute of body size and shape with two groups of social comparison targets: photographs from popular …