‘Large Is Beautiful!’ Associative Retraining Changes Implicit Beliefs About Thinness and Beauty and Decreases Women’s Appearance Anxiety

Leila Selimbegovic (1) , Julie Collange (2) , Yvana Bocage-Barthélémy (1) , Armand Chatard (3, 1)

1 CeRCA [Poitiers] - Centre de recherches sur la cognition et l'apprentissage [UMR 7295]
2 LATI - EA 4469 - Laboratoire Adaptations Travail Individu
3 Unité de recherche clinique intersectorielle du Centre Hospitalier Henri Laborit

Many women believe that they must be thin to be beautiful (Grogan, 2006). In comparison to men, women more heavily invest in and have more negative body image (Davis et al., 2020; Muth & Cash, 1997; Quittkat et al., 2019). This is associated with many undesirable outcomes, such as anxiety and unhealthy behaviors such as smoking, binge eating, physical inactivity, unhealthy diet, intentional vomiting, consumption of laxative, diuretic, or weight loss pills, and even suicide attempts in adolescents (Cash et al., 2004; Neumark-Sztainer et al., 2006; Rodríguez-Cano et al., 2006). Therefore, developing efficient ways to maintain a positive body image is a worthy pursuit for both theoretical and practical reasons. In the present work, we examined one potentially efficient strategy: the modification of semantic associations between thinness and beauty. We reasoned that if this association is weakened, then the implicit belief that thinness is a defining attribute of female beauty will also be attenuated. Further, if such a belief plays an important role in shaping women's body image concerns, then the techniques used to weaken the thin-beautiful association should also affect self-perception in terms of physical attractiveness and preoccupation with physical appear

Domaines: Sciences de l'Homme et Société

Leila Selimbegovic, Julie Collange, Yvana Bocage-Barthélémy, Armand Chatard. ‘Large Is Beautiful!’ Associative Retraining Changes Implicit Beliefs About Thinness and Beauty and Decreases Women’s Appearance Anxiety. International Review of Social Psychology, 2021, 34, ⟨10.5334/irsp.442⟩. ⟨hal-03481098⟩