Market Lett (2007) 18:101116DOI 10.1007/s11002-006-9004-8

The influence of TV viewing on consumers bodyimages and related consumption behavior

Martin Eisend Jana Moller

Received: 22 April 2006 / Accepted: 31 July 2006 /Published online: 9 September 2006C Springer Science + Business Media, LLC 2006

Abstract Based on cultivation theory, self-concept theories, and gender research,this study investigates the influence of TV viewing on female and male consumersperceived body images and related consumption behavior. The results show that TVviewing biases social perceptions of body images; however, TV viewing does notimpact mens consumption behavior. For women, in contrast, TV viewing increasesthe realideal self discrepancy, which, in turn, leads to consumption behavior in orderto achieve ideal bodies. For both groups, TV viewing increases body dissatisfaction;also, general beliefs about body images influence related behavior. The results providesome interesting contributions to theory and practice.

Keywords Cultivation theory . Body images . Media effects . Beauty-relatedconsumption

The beauty industry is one of the most prosperous sectors in todays developedeconomies. Consumers invest considerable amounts of their income in clothing, cos-metics, and treatments to preserve or renew their attractiveness. Particularly plasticsurgery has become very popular over the last years, and more and more people acceptsurgery invasion for aesthetic reasons. For instance, the number of plastic surgeriesin Germany has increased by about 38% from 2003 to 2004 (www.gacd.de). Despitethe economic relevance of the topic, little research has been done from a consumerresearch perspective in order to understand these phenomena and the processes thatcould explain consumer behavior towards beauty products and treatments. Previousresearch provides evidence for the impact of the exposure to body images in themedia on related outcome variables. Communication studies have shown that mediaconsumption plays a crucial role in influencing body images and body satisfaction(e.g., Field et al., 1999; Groesz et al., 2002; Levine and Smolak, 2002; McGin-nis et al., 2006; Tiggemann, 2002). Advertising studies have revealed support that

M. Eisend () J. MollerMarketing-Department, Freie Universitat Berlin, Otto-von-Simson-Str. 19, 14195 Berlin, Germanye-mail: eisend@zedat.fu-berlin.de

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102 Market Lett (2007) 18:101116

exposure to advertising with attractive models can temporarily raise comparison stan-dards for physical attractiveness (Richins, 1991), enhance beliefs about the importanceof attractiveness (Tan, 1979), and lower body satisfaction (Martin and Gentry, 1997).The topic is also investigated from a public health perspective: exposure to ideal bod-ies in mass media seems to contribute to eating disorders (Botta, 1999; Stice et al.,1994). Previous research on mass media exposure and its influence on body imageshave stressed several outcome variables (e.g., body perception, body dissatisfaction)but failed to integrate the underlying processes leading to beauty-related consumptionbehavior; furthermore, those studies have almost exclusively investigated the effectson women. Based on cultivation theory, we develop a model that integrates severaloutcome variables and explains the process how TV viewing leads to body-related per-ceptions, beliefs, and behavior patterns of consumption. For this purpose, we introducea distinction of perceptions and beliefs related to the social reality and the self. Fur-thermore, we show that underlying processes differ for men and women as suggestedby self-concept theories. The results of the study provide important implications forthe personal appearance industry as well as for appearance related health disorders.

1 Cultivation effects of body images in the media

Cultivation theory asserts that enduring exposure to television has subtle and cumu-lative effects on shaping views of social reality (Gerbner et al., 1994, 2002). Heavytelevision users rely on what they see on television as representations of reality. Sincetelevision reality is exaggerated and fictitious, they come to have a distorted socialperception of the world: Television cultivates reality. Content analyses have shownthat such topics as crime, violence, and particular occupations (doctors, lawyers, po-lice officers) are overrepresented in television (Gerbner et al., 1994). The more peoplewatch television, the more they will see the real world similar to the world portrayedon television. In the end, they will perceive a greater real-world incidence of theoverrepresented entities (i.e., biased social perceptions); increased television viewingwill also result in biased beliefs (e.g., acceptance of crime), which, in turn, can affectbehavior (e.g., aggression behavior). Also in the context of consumer research, culti-vation studies have provided evidence that television exposure influences perceptionsof consumer reality. Heavy television viewing influences consumers perceptions thatresemble the media reality of consumption patterns; examples are perceptions ofaffluence (OGuinn and Shrum, 1997), perceptions of the frequency of specific con-sumption behavior (alcohol or drug abuse, sports activities), or materialistic values(Burroughs et al., 2002).

Shrum and his colleagues (OGuinn and Shrum, 1997; Shrum, 1998, 1999, 2001;Shrum et al., 1998, 2004) have provided theoretical explanations for cognitive pro-cesses based on accessibility effects that underlie cultivation effects. When estimationssuch as the percentage of adults who had a plastic surgery are required (for instance,in a survey setting), people will not have a concrete number stored in memory.Instead, they will attempt to construct an estimate by recalling relevant examples andscenarios. The more people watch those examples and scenarios on TV, the easierthey are available. According to the availability heuristic (Tversky and Kahnemann,1973), people estimate the prevalence of patterns and events based on how easy it is

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to retrieve the related information from memory. Also, beliefs such as the belief thatsportive people are more successful in life can be formed in a similar way. Yet, theyare more stable than memory-based estimates, as they have been formed, reinforced,or updated on a consistent basis by the incoming information (Shrum et al., 2004).That information can also be provided by television programs such that cultivationeffects relate to prevalence estimations as well as to beliefs.

Cultivation effects relate also to body images. Body images are based on a culturalideology that underlies body satisfaction, senses of ideal and desirable bodies, andactivities motivated by these perceptions and feelings (Thompson and Hirschman,1995). These days, those socialized bodies are largely manifested by mass media.Popular prime time programs include many young and attractive actors and actresses(e.g., Ally McBeal, Friends, Sex and the City, etc.). Their physical appearance andbodies deviate from the population average (Silverstein et al., 1986). Hence, heavyviewers of those programs may have a biased perception of what an average appearanceand body looks like in todays society and what efforts are undertaken in orderto achieve such bodies. Hendriks (2002) argues that particularly female viewers ofthose programs are more likely to perceive unrealistic thin female bodies as a standard.Indeed, results of a content analysis of characters in television shows reveal that 69.1%of the female characters are rated as thin compared to 17.5% of the males (Silversteinet al., 1986). General beliefs towards body images can be influenced by televisionviewing, too. Content analysis of prime time situation comedies found out that 33%of female characters were below average weight and the thinner the female character,the more positive comments the character received from males (Fouts and Burggraf,1999). Thus, viewers may internalize that thin is desirable, leading to positive reactionsfrom the social environment. As a result, their beliefs regarding body images may beupdated or reinforced while viewing those television programs. Particularly femaleshave not only biased perceptions and beliefs regarding body shapes but they obviouslyfeel pressure to conform to those standards as well (Milkie, 1999; Murray et al., 1996).Previous research has shown that females overestimate their body sizes (McCrearyand Sadava, 1999) and have low levels of body satisfaction after viewing ideal bodyimages (Stice and Shaw, 1994). Biased media images of ideal female beauty seem tocontribute to the fact that one woman out of every two is dissatisfied with her body(Hendriks, 2002). Also, results of a meta-analysis support that mass media portray aslender ideal that elicits body dissatisfaction (Groesz et al., 2002).H1: Amount of TV viewing leads to (a) biased social perceptions of body images, (b)

biased beliefs with respect to body images, and (c) enhanced body dissatisfaction.Viewing of television programs can influence behavior as has been widely shown for

aggression. Here, the likelihood for aggressive behavior also depends on the amountof television consumption, the availability of particular genres, and the readiness bywhich they may be retrieved (Comstock, 2004; Wood et al., 1991). Cultivation effectshave been shown to relate to other behavior patterns and behavioral intentions as well,e.g., marriage intentions (Segrin and Nabi, 2002) or decreased saving intentions ofAmericans, indicated by a positive correlation between spending on purchases andtelevision viewing (Schor, 1996). These direct effects of perceptions on behavior cor-respond to the idea of heuristic processing in cultivation research (Shrum, 1998; Shrumet al., 2004). In addition, given our knowledge of an attitudebehavior relationship

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(Fazio and Zanna, 1981), beliefs with respect to body images are quite likely to in-fluence related consumption behavior as well. Furthermore, dissatisfaction with onesbody has been demonstrated to differentiate aesthetic plastic surgery patients fromnonpatient control groups (Shipley et al., 1977). Hence, the behavior in order to achieveideal bodies as depicted in the media can also be explained by body dissatisfaction.

H2: (a) Biased social perceptions of body images, (b) biased beliefs with respectto body images, and (c) enhanced body dissatisfaction increase the likelihood ofbehavior to achieve ideal bodies.

2 Cultivation effects related to the social reality and the self

Cultivation effects have been mostly investigated with respect to the perception ofthe social reality (i.e., what is normal behavior in the social environment, and whatwe describe as social perceptions), but may also apply to perceptions and beliefsrelated to the self. The broad topic of self-concept refers to the collection of beliefsthat people hold towards themselves. The self-concept has many dimensions but ismostly reflected in two ways, an actual self and an ideal self that serves as a guidefor the self (Higgins, 1987; Sirgy, 1982). The ideal self is the reference point thatthe actual self is compared to. Out of the selfs many dimensions, the body holds animportant position, both psychologically and culturally, so that the body image canbe regarded as an important component of the self-concept. Cultivation effects thatlead to biased social perceptions may also lead to an increased gap between real andideal self-concepts. Discrepancies between the actual self and ideal self states leadto dejection-related emotions, e.g., disappointment or dissatisfaction (Higgins, 1987).Hence, these deviations from the ideal self should provide a path to body satisfactionbased on the idea that self-concepts have motivational and affective consequences(Markus and Nurius, 1986; Richins, 1991). If there is a gap between the real and idealself, an individual strives to achieve the ideal state, and behavior is more likely toreduce this gap as has been shown by Markus and Nurius (1986) for the concept ofpossible selves: hypothetical self-schemas act as objects of individually significantaspiration, hope, fantasy, or fear and motivate accordingly approach or avoidancebehavior. Those specified possible selves function as incentives for future behaviorand provide a meansend pattern for new behavior. Consumption of aesthetic plasticsurgery is a means to achieve positive possible selves and to avoid negative possibleselves; it has been shown to help consumers to develop a stable, harmonious self-concept with a decreased realideal discrepancy (Schouten, 1991).H3: Amount of TV viewing leads to (a) biased self-perceptions, which, in turn, (b)

increase body dissatisfaction as well as (c) the likelihood of behavior to achieveideal bodies.

3 Gender differences in the cultivation of body images

With a few exceptions (e.g., McCreary and Sadava, 1999), previous research onbody images mostly investigated the influence of media consumption on womensperceptions of their body. Since bias of body depiction in media seems to be strongerfor women than for men (Hendriks, 2002; Spitzer et al., 1999), gender can be related

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to the accessibility of particular types of information on attractiveness and beautysuch that cultivation effects should differ for men and women. However, previousresearch refers particularly to self-perceptions and not to social perceptions aboutattractiveness (Jacobi and Cash, 1994). We suggest that cultivation effects related toeither social or self-perceptions differ for men and women; this can be explained bygender differences in self-construal and self-confidence.

Cross and Madson (1997) have shown that men and women construct and maintaindifferent self-construals. Men tend to develop an independent self-construal that ischaracterized by a strong need for being individualistic, autonomous, and independentfrom others. Those with independent selves elaborate more on their self than onother people (Markus and Kitayama, 1991). Women have been shown to develop aninterdependent self-construal, they are considered to be more attentive and sensitiveto others and seek to form intimate connections with other people (Cross and Madson,1997). This results in greater cognitive elaboration of others such that women haveaccess to a greater store of specific, dense, and elaborated information about othersand their behavior (Markus and Kitayama, 1991). Based on their results, Lin andRaghubir (2005) assume that women with an interdependent self are more likelyto use contextual information to generate and modify memory-based judgments.Hence, they tend to retrieve specific knowledge about others to make judgments ofwhat an average person does in order to be attractive rather than simply relying onexamples shown on television. In contrast, men are to invest in a larger sphere ofsocial relationships with a larger number of people that is less intimate (Baumeisterand Sommer, 1997). Compared to women, they rather lack specific stored informationabout others that could be used as context information in order to make a judgment onthe social reality of beauty-related behavior. As a result, men rely more on televisioninformation as a source for memory-based judgments than women. Hence, we expectthe perception of mens social reality (i.e., others concern for their bodies) to be moremalleable by portrayals of attractive people on television than that of women.

H4: Amount of TV viewing will have a stronger impact on mens (a) social perceptionsand (b) beliefs of body images than on womens social perceptions and beliefs ofbody images.

Based on research on gender differences in self-esteem, we further expect differentinfluences of television information on self-perceptions of men and women. Feministtheory points out that in todays society women are objects to be looked at (Spitzack,1990). Indeed there is a strong cultural emphasis on girls and womens physicalappearance. Allgood-Merten et al. (1990) have shown that perceptions of physicalattractiveness are more strongly associated with self-esteem for girls than for boys.When it comes to comparing the real self with an ideal body image, women tend toassess their actual body image more discrepant to their ideal than men (Fallon andRozin, 1985). This may be due to the fact that women in general are less self-confidentthan men (Kling et al., 1999), which results from different gender roles: male rolesare consistent with high self-esteem and self-confidence is stereotyped as a masculinecharacteristic (Broverman et al., 1972; Ruble, 1983). Hence, while television viewingmay influence the perceptions of an ideal self for men and women in the same way,the perception of the actual self is lowered for women with respect to body images.

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H5: For women, amount of TV viewing leads to increased effects on self-perceptionrelated to body images compared to men.

4 Method

A questionnaire was applied to a convenience sample of 241 students (58.8% female,average age 24.66 years). They were asked several questions with respect to theresearch topic which are described in the following. For further analyses, compositeindices of all multi-item measures were calculated.

4.1 Television measure

Following Shrum et al. (1998) procedures, participants were asked to estimate theminutes they watched television during each of four periods (6 a.m.noon, noon6p.m., 6 p.m.midnight, midnight6 a.m.) on an average weekday, on an average Sat-urday, and on an average Sunday. These data were combined (weighting the averageweekday questions by a factor of 5 compared to the Saturday and Sunday items)and averaged to create an average TV viewing hours/day measure.

4.2 Social perceptions

Five questions were used to measure the perceptions of others concern for their body.Respondents were asked to provide a concrete estimate of the percentage of Germanadults having regular manicures, going to the gym regularly, having a diet at leastonce a year, having a plastic surgery, and spending at least 10% of their income forbeauty products (clothing, cosmetics). The scale had a reliability of = 0.73.

4.3 Self-perceptions

The self-concept discrepancy measures consisted of 30 items taken from a scaleprovided by Gould (1993) which assessed how close or how far a person felt she/hewas from her/his ideal state with respect to a variety of self-characteristics relatedto body image. The items were measured on a 9-point scale with 1 indicating thatan individual felt her/his actual state to be very close to ideal (small discrepancy)and 9 indicating that he/she felt her/his actual state to be very far from ideal (largediscrepancy). The scale had a reliability of = 0.84.

4.4 Beliefs

Seven items were used to measure beliefs with respect to body images and attractive-ness (e.g., attractiveness plays a major role for a career). People had to indicate theiragreement to the statements on a 9-point scale. The scale had a reliability of = 0.69.

4.5 Body dissatisfaction

A reduced form of the Body Cathexis Scale (Secord and Jourard, 1953) was usedincluding only those physical features that are related to attractiveness and can be

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altered by surgery or extensive exercising. Respondents were asked to rate howsatisfied they were with 20 physical features (e.g., waist, eyes, face) by using a 5-pointLikert scale ranging from 1 (completely dissatisfied) to 5 (completely satisfied)(Pinigitore et al., 1997). The scale had a reliability of = 0.91.

4.6 Behavioral measures

Seven items were used to measure consumer behavior to achieve ideal bodies. Forinstance, respondents had to indicate if they go to the gym at least once a week. Thecomposite measure was formed by counting how often respondents answered in theaffirmative.

4.7 Supplementary data (control variables)

The use of control variables in cultivation research is highly recommended in order toavoid spuriously high correlation coefficients (Hawkins and Pingree, 1982; Hughes,1980). Several factors were included that might relate to either the independent ordependent variables: participants sex, age, grade point average, perceived realism ofTV, professional experiences with beauty-related jobs, and amount and importanceof media conversation with friends. The possible influence of sex is motivated by ourhypotheses. Age is related to television viewing level and to accumulated televisionmemories over time (Hughes, 1980). Grade point average was included based on theargumentation of previous cultivation research, where grades are related to intelligenceand therefore to the accuracy of the participants answers to the dependent measures(Shrum, 2001). To assess the extent to which participants feel that television presentedtruthful portrayals, Rubins five-item scale of perceived realism of television contentwas administered (Rubin et al., 1988). The scale had a reliability of = 0.73.Adjustments of the perception of reality may be furthered by topic-related directexperiences and through conversations with friends about media content. Hence,participants were asked if they had professional experiences with beauty and body-related jobs (e.g., nurses, actors, fitness trainers); a dummy measure was included.In order to control for reality adjustments that can emerge through conversationswith friends about media content, participants were asked for the number of friendsthey have and with whom they are discussing media contents and what role thosediscussions play.

5 Results

Regression analyses were performed in order to test the effect of television viewing.The control variables were first entered as a block, followed by entry of televisionviewing. If television viewing accounts for unique variance in the dependent measures,the incremental change in R2 in the second entry step should be significant. Takingall participants together, the results depicted in Table 1 prove social perceptions andbody dissatisfaction to be influenced by TV consumption. For males, significant effectsrelate to social perceptions, beliefs, and body dissatisfaction; for women, effects relateto self-perceptions and body dissatisfaction.

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108 Market Lett (2007) 18:101116Ta

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