Brief Exposure to Media Images Affects Body Dissatisfaction, Body Change Behaviour and Selective Attention Towards Bodily-Related Words

Daily consumption of media has become a norm for almost all young adults in this modern era. The current study examined whether brief exposure to media-related body images would affect young adults’ body dissatisfaction, body change behaviour, and selective attention towards bodily-related words. Ninety Malaysian young adults between 19 and 25 years old participated in an experiment in which they either viewed highly- or moderately-related body images (experimental conditions) or neutral images (control condition) for a brief period. Participants’ body dissatisfaction level and intention to change body size were measured before and after the media exposure. To assess participants’ selective attention towards type of bodily-related words, their performance on a modified Stroop task was also measured. Results showed that participants who viewed the highly-related body images condition became significantly dissatisfied with their body shape and were more likely to engage in body change behaviour. Their Stroop performance was also significantly affected by highly sensitive bodily-related words compared to other less relevant or neutral words, indicating selective heightened sensitivity and attentional bias in information processing. Consistent with past studies, our empirical evidence demonstrates the effect of still media images, even with brief exposure, and how it could alter one’s perception on body shape, intention towards changing the body state, and selective attention in information processing.