The Influence Of Social Comparison Objects On Female University Students’ Body Image:Based On Virtual Reality

Body image anxiety and appearance anxiety are common in the female college population.Studies have shown that misconceptions about body image are highly associated with dieting,low self-esteem,and social anxiety,which directly affect the development of physical and mental health.Therefore,it is important to explore the factors that influence body image among female college students.Sociocultural Theories illustrates the important role of media and peers in shaping body image.Individuals internalize the socio-culturally defined standard body and perfect body by comparing themselves with celebrity images in the media and peers around them.This study investigates how the different comparison directions(upward and downward comparison)of social comparison objects(celebrities and peers)affect body image.Study Ⅰ refers to the model stimulus presentation paradigm to construct a runway stage scenario in virtual reality to trigger social comparisons.Study Ⅰ explores the effects of different similarities and comparison directions of comparators.Study Ⅱ refers to the motion video stimulus paradigm and changes the presentation scene from a catwalk stage to a sports track.Study Ⅱ explores the social comparison outcomes in the body function attention condition and the environmental role of body function attention on negative effects.Specifically,Study Ⅰ used a 2(celebrities,peers)× 2(upward comparison,downward comparison)between-subjects design.In addition,the important trait of personal body satisfaction was also measured.ANOVAs revealed significant main effects of comparison direction,with more negative body image effects in the upward comparison group.And significant interaction effects,with more negative body image effects in the celebrity group in the upward comparison and in the peer group in the downward comparison.Study Ⅱ explored the effect of the condition of functional attention on the process of social comparison.A 2 × 2 between-subjects design was also used.The ANOVA showed that in the functional attention condition,the comparison object main effect was significant,with a greater negative effect on body image in the peer group.The comparison direction main effect was significant,with a greater negative effect on body image in the upward comparison group.And the interaction effect was significant,with a positive effect on body image in the celebrity group and a negative effect in the peer group in the downward comparison.The results of Study Ⅰ and Ⅱ were compared to explore the mitigating effect of body function concerns on the negative effects of social comparison.A paired-samples t-test of the difference in body image bias between studies one and two demonstrated that body function concerns mitigated the effects of social comparison on body image.ANOVAs indicated that the main effect of comparison subjects was significant,with the celebrity group having a greater mitigating effect than the peer group.Virtual reality not only enables precise control of experimental conditions,but also ensures ecological validity with high subject arousal and realistic scenarios.This study used Virtual reality to compensate for the limitations of existing research methods.In this study,the Virtual reality can capture the subtle changes of individual body image more finely and accurately compared to the scale measurement.The study found that:(1)Social comparison objects affect female college students’ body image.Upward comparisons had a greater negative impact on body image with celebrities than with peers.In downward comparisons,comparisons with peers had a greater negative impact than comparisons with celebrities.(2)Attention to the body function of obese stars had a positive effect on body image.(3)Body function concern mitigated the negative effect of social comparisons on body image,and attention to the body function of stars had a greater mitigating effect than attention to peers.