A closer look at the role of social influence in the development of attitudes to eating

✍ Scribed by Belinda J. Balaam; S. Alexander Haslam

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1998
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 201 KB
• Volume: 8
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1052-9284
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1099-1298(199805/06)8:3<195::aid-casp447>3.0.co;2-u

✦ Synopsis

The relationship between social in¯uence and the development of attitudes to eating was explored in an experimental study. Schoolgirls (n 59, median age 15 years) listened to an interview in which the interviewee (identi®ed as a radical feminist, a sportswoman or a women's magazine journalist) gave either a pro-diet or an anti-diet message. Following the interview, participants completed a questionnaire which examine their attitudes to eating and their judgements of the interviewee. The results supported predictions that in¯uence would vary as an interactive function of the message and the normative ingroup±outgroup status of the message source. However, dierent patterns of in¯uence were observed on two factors that emerged from an analysis of the eating disorder items, suggesting that there were important dierences in the shaping of subjects' beliefs about appropriate eating behaviour, (a) for themselves personally and (b) for the community in general. The ®ndings suggest that social in¯uence has a signi®cant but complex impact upon the development of potentially harmful attitudes to eating. It also appears that, for a variety of reasons, certain anti-diet messages may actually be a counter-productive means of improving female body satisfaction.