Surprisingly, Female Models Have Negative Effect on Men
(PhysOrg.com) -- Many studies have shown that media images of female
models have had a negative impact on how woman view their own bodies,
but does this same effect hold true when men view male models? A leading
researcher of media effects on body image at the University of Missouri
looked at the effect of male magazines on college-age men. Completing
three different studies, Jennifer Aubrey, assistant professor of
communication in the College of Arts and Science, found that unlike
their female classmates, it was not the same-sex models that affected
the males negatively, but quite the opposite.
In her research, which will be published in Human Communication
Research, Aubrey found that the cultural expectation for men is not that
they have to be as attractive as their peers, but that they need to be
attractive enough to be sexually appealing to women.
In her first study, Aubrey measured male exposure to 'lad' magazines,
such as Maxim, FHM and Stuff, which she observes contains two main
messages: the visual, which mostly contain sexually suggestive images of
women; and textual, which contain articles that speak in a bawdy, male
voice about topics including fashion, sex, technology and pop culture.
Aubrey also measured male body self-consciousness (a participant's
awareness and tendency to monitor one's appearance) and appearance
anxiety (the anticipation of threatening stimuli). Participants were
asked questions such as "During the day, I think about how I look," and
then asked the same questions a year later.
"We found that reading lad magazines was related to having body
self-consciousness a year later," said Aubrey. "This was surprising
because if you look at the cover of these magazines, they are mainly
images of women. We wondered why magazines that were dominated by sexual
images of women were having an effect of men's feelings about their own
bodies."
Miss Australia too Skinny ?
To help answer this question, Aubrey collaborated with University of
California-Davis Assistant Professor Laramie Taylor. The researchers
divided male study participants into three groups. Group one examined
layouts from lad magazines that featured objectified women along with a
brief description of their appearances. The second group viewed layouts
about male fashion, featuring fit and well-dressed male models. The
final group inspected appearance-neutral layouts that featured topics
including technology and film trivia.
"Men who viewed the layouts of objectified females reported more body
self-consciousness than the other two groups," Aubrey said. "Even more
surprising was that the male fashion group reported the least amount of
body self-consciousness among the three groups."
Aubrey speculated that the exposure to objectified females increased
self-consciousness because men are reminded that in order to be sexually
or romantically involved with a woman of similar attractiveness, they
need to conform to strict appearance standards.
To test her theory, Aubrey and Taylor completed a third study that
involved breaking men into two groups. Group one received lad magazine
layouts of sexually idealized females and group two received the same
layouts with average-looking 'boyfriends' added to the photos, with
captions about how the female models are attracted to the
average-looking men.
"We found that the men who view the ads with the average-looking
boyfriend in the picture reported less body self-consciousness than the
men who saw the ads with just the model," Aubrey said. "When the men
felt that the model in the ad liked average-looking guys, it took the
pressure off of them and made them less self-conscious about their own
bodies."
Provided by University of Missouri-Columbia