Male Body Dissatisfaction: The Effect of Body Norm Information on Men's Current and Ideal Body Size Estimates

Date
2016
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Abstract
Research about male body image has become increasingly important as the prevalence of male body dissatisfaction (BD) has increased. In Western culture, the idealized male body is portrayed as muscular, lean, and tall. Descriptive body norms, or the “average” body shape and size, potentially influence the development of male BD. This research was a partial replication and extension of the research conducted by Mills, Jadd, and Key (2012), which examined the effect of body norms on men’s current and ideal body size estimates. In the current study, 155 males between the age of 18 and 24 years from the United States were recruited through Amazon.com’s Mechanical Turk and Prolific Academic. The results suggested that body norms do influence men’s current body size estimates, but not their ideal body size estimates, as men indicated a more muscular current body size following exposure to a more muscular body norm. This finding is surprising given that previous research indicated that body norms affected men’s ideal, but not their current, body size estimates. Specifically, men in a more muscular body norm condition had a more muscular ideal body size than in the less muscular body norm condition. Future researchers may want replicate the current study with a younger sample of males. Counselling psychologists need to be aware of male body image and body dissatisfaction and the unique impact that body norm information might have on male clients. Moreover, the findings of the current study suggest that men are potentially influenced by more muscular body norms. Therefore, counselling psychologists may want to challenge these muscular body norms with male clients and focus on functionality and health over muscularity.
Description
Keywords
Educational Psychology, Education--Guidance and Counseling, Psychology--Social
Citation
Hutchinson, T. D. (2016). Male Body Dissatisfaction: The Effect of Body Norm Information on Men's Current and Ideal Body Size Estimates (Master's thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca. doi:10.11575/PRISM/26820