What’s not to like? Enhancing women’s body satisfaction by means of an evaluative conditioning procedure with positive social feedback

Irina Masselman*, Peter J. de Jong, Klaske A. Glashouwer

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

5 Citations (Scopus)
130 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

The prevalence of a negative body image among women is high. Because of its serious consequences for individuals’ mental health, there is an urgent need to improve current body image interventions. Recent studies using evaluative conditioning to strengthen the association between women’s body and positive (social) stimuli have shown promising results. In two experimental studies, we tested whether incorporating more age appropriate positive social stimuli as unconditioned stimuli (USs) can strengthen the conditioning procedure as a means to enhance women’s body satisfaction. In the experimental condition, participants’ body pictures were systematically followed by the Facebook like-button and youthful smiling faces (study 1, experimental condition: n = 68; control condition: n = 67) or positive Emojis (study 2, experimental condition: n = 64; control condition: n = 67). The results indicated that neither conditioning procedure enhanced participants’ body satisfaction more than a control procedure, and in both studies, there was no valence transfer from the positive USs to the body pictures. Thus, incorporation of age appropriate USs did not result in the anticipated conditioning effects. These findings challenge the utility of current evaluative conditioning procedures as an intervention technique to address a negative body image.

Original languageEnglish
Number of pages13
JournalJournal of Experimental Psychopathology
Volume13
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1-Jan-2022

Keywords

  • body dissatisfaction
  • Body image
  • Emojis
  • evaluative conditioning
  • intervention
  • social media

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