Annotated Bibliography

Harvey, M. (2017, July 10). Personal interview.

Morgan your typical girl from Birmingham, Alabama. She attends a large research university in Alabama and you could typically find her spending time with her friends and attending church and bible studies. She decided to deactivate her Instagram, Pinterest, Snapchat, and Facebook accounts after her and her boyfriend broke up. She discussed how overwhelming it was to keep up a presence on social media. Her self-esteem was shattered and deleting her social media helped her gain confidence back because she spent the time that she typically would on social media, finding herself. She said “[t]aking a break was the best thing I could have done for myself when I was in that self-destructive mindset. I would gladly do it again if I needed to.”

Woodward, H. (2017, July 9). Personal interview.

Haley is a nineteen-year-old junior who attends the same large research university in the state of Alabama. She deactivated her Instagram after her sorority sister told her how much it influenced her and her well-being. She gained the freshmen fifteen and despite all of her efforts to lose the weight, she just could not seem to lose the weight. She felt depressed and eventually spiraled to eating disorders. She was obsessed with looking like the peers and the celebrities with the perfect, thin body type. She explained when she reactivated her Instagram she relapsed and began experiencing a negative body image, therefore she chooses to limit the time she spends on social media.

Bessenoff, G. R. (2006). Can the media affect us? Social comparison, self-discrepancy, and the thin ideal. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 30(3), 239-251. doi:10.1111/j.1471-6402.2006.00292.x

The exposure to the ideal body size of a woman can cause one to feel inferior which can lead to depression, negative mood, poor self-image, and body dissatisfaction. It is hypothesized that women with higher levels of self-discrepancy in regards to body image are more likely to compare themselves to other women, which in turn, can lead to maladaptive behaviors. This study contains multiple hypotheses. First off, people with self-discrepancy issues who are exposed to thin-ideal advertisements/media will experience greater negativity towards themselves. Next, such individuals will be more likely to compare themselves to others which will increase their body dissatisfaction and lowered self-esteem. Lastly, from such exposure to thin-ideal advertisements will increase the individual’s risk to self-harm due to this comparison. Participants were asked to take a survey to measure body image, and provided with several pictures of thin-ideal stimuli. They were asked to assess their mood, self-esteem, and were asked an automatic thoughts questionnaire which helped determine depression-relation cognitions. They were also given a questionnaire that assessed their dietary habits, especially focusing in on eating disorders. This proved all of their hypotheses true, women experienced greater body dissatisfaction.