First article Literature Review draft

· Hayes and Tantleff-Dunn

o In their study of 121 girl’s age 3-6 years old, Hayes and Tantleff-Dunn found that appearance related media did not affect the girl’s body image in appearance related play. They state that this suggests that media exposure does not affect body image in young girls. I feel that these results actually just show desensitization to the media that the girls have already been exposed to, especially since the self-reported data showed that half of the 3-6 year olds thought they were fat. I don’t feel that this early body dysmorphia came from anywhere else other than the appearance-related media that the girls had been exposed to leading up to this study.

o In the Hayes and Tantleff-Dunn study, the researchers measured difference of the video stimuli in appearance-related clips versus neutral clips, immediate behaviors resulting from the viewing clips, qualitative reactions through interviews, and the level of body dissatisfaction among the girls.

o The video stimuli measure categorized the video clips into 2 groups based on whether or not there was appearance related material in the clip. In an example on page 416, the researchers note an example that they use in the study from Beauty and the Beast where “Gaston comments that Belle is ‘the most beautiful girl in town and that makes her the best.’” Other appearance related clips in movies such as Anastasia, Cinderella and, Sleeping Beauty showed characters participating in appearance enhancing acts like changing clothes to become more beautiful. . The control group was shown neutral clips from shows like Dragon Tales, Clifford, and Lilo & Stich with only cartoon humans.

o The behavioral rating sale was used to catalogue appearance-related behavior in the children after they were shown the clips. The researchers used two assistants to code and time a finite amount of appearance related activities, like playing dress-up, vs. the non-appearance related activities like Legos.

References

Hayes, S., & TantIeff-Dunn, S. (2010). Am I too fat to be a princess? Examining the effects of popular children's media on young girls' body image. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 28(2), 413-426.