Body Dissatisfaction Revisited: On the Importance of Implicit Beliefs about Actual and Ideal Body Image

Abstract

Body dissatisfaction (i.e., a negative attitude towards one's own physical appearance) is assumed to originate from a perceived discrepancy between the actual physical appearance (i.e., actual body image) and the desired ideal state of the body (i.e., ideal body image). We assessed implicit beliefs about these two aspects of the body image independently using two Relational Responding Tasks (RRT) in a sample of participants who were either low or high in explicitly reported body dissatisfaction. As hypothesized, differences in body dissatisfaction exerted a differential influence on the two RRT scores. The implicit belief that one is thin was less pronounced in participants who were strongly dissatisfied with their body relative to participants who were more satisfied with their body. The implicit desire to be thin (i.e., thin ideal body image), in contrast, tended to be more pronounced in participants who exhibited a high degree of body dissatisfaction as compared to participants who exhibited a low degree of body dissatisfaction. Hierarchical regression analyses also revealed that the RRT scores were predictive of self-reported body dissatisfaction, even over and above the predictive validity of some (but not all) explicit predictors of body dissatisfaction that were included in the present study. More generally, these findings contribute to the empirical validation of the RRT as a measure of implicit beliefs in the context of body dissatisfaction.

Keywords: Implicit measures; body dissatisfaction; eating disorder; relational responding task.

Figure 1

Probability of group membership (high vs. low degree of body dissatisfaction) as a function of the implicit desire to possess a thin body (i.e., D1 scores for the ideal-RRT), separated for low (i.e., 1 SD below average), average, and high (i.e., 1 SD above average) degrees of the implicit belief that one is thin (i.e., D1 scores for the actual-RRT).