Role of social comparison in effet of the mass media on female college students body image

Objective:To research the effect of the media on women's body image.Methods:The subjects were all from 2 colleges.The subjects of experiment 1 were 63 high and low trait social comparison female students.Among them,high trait social comparison subjects were 31 in the model image group,30 in the product image group.Low trait social comparison subjects were 30 in the model image group,32 were in the product image group.The subjects of experiment 2 were the total of 61 high trait social comparison female students.Among them,30 subjects were analyzed by similarity comparison,and 31 subjects received difference comparison.The instruments included advertisement pictures,body image states scale,the physical apperance comparion scale,and the consumer response questionnaire.Results:Analysis of variance showed that,in the model image level,the score of body image scale in high social comparison group was significantly higher than that in low social comparison group [(5.54±1.05)vs.(4.73±0.92),P0.001].Regression analysis further showed that social comparison was moderator(ΔR2= 0.035,P0.01).For social comparisons mode,score of body image scale in difference comparison group was higher than that in similarity comparison group [(5.55±0.82)vs.(4.56±0.86),P0.05].Conclusion:These findings suggested that social comparison can be used to prevent female college students' negative body images.