Automatic social comparison: Cognitive load facilitates an increase in negative thought accessibility after thin ideal exposure among women

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Version: Final published version
License: CC BY 4.0
Serval ID
serval:BIB_A749545821E0
Type
Article: article from journal or magazin.
Collection
Publications
Title
Automatic social comparison: Cognitive load facilitates an increase in negative thought accessibility after thin ideal exposure among women
Journal
PLOS ONE
Author(s)
Bocage-Barthélémy Yvana, Chatard Armand, Jaafari Nematollah, Tello Nina, Billieux Joël, Daveau Emmanuel, Selimbegović Leila
ISSN
1932-6203
Publication state
Published
Issued date
2018
Peer-reviewed
Oui
Editor
Kavushansky Alexandra
Volume
13
Number
3
Pages
e0193200
Language
english
Abstract
Women are routinely exposed to images of extremely slim female bodies (the thin ideal) in
advertisements, even if they do not necessarily pay much attention to these images. We
hypothesized that paradoxically, it is precisely in such conditions of low attention that the
impact of the social comparison with the thin ideal might be the most pronounced. To test
this prediction, one hundred and seventy-three young female participants were exposed to
images of the thin ideal or of women's fashion accessories. They were allocated to either a
condition of high (memorizing 10 digits) or low cognitive load (memorizing 4 digits). The
main dependent measure was implicit: mean recognition latency of negative words, relative
to neutral words, as assessed by a lexical decision task. The results showed that thin-ideal
exposure did not affect negative word accessibility under low cognitive load but that it
increased it under high cognitive load. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis
that social comparison with the thin ideal is an automatic process, and contribute to explain
why some strategies to prevent negative effects of thin-ideal exposure are inefficient
Keywords
Social Comparison, Cognitive Load, Thin Ideal
Pubmed
Web of science
Open Access
Yes
Create date
10/01/2020 9:30
Last modification date
15/01/2020 10:37
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