Self-compassion and women's experience of social media content portraying body positivity and appearance ideals.

Abstract

In two experiments, we compared the effects of viewing randomly assigned Instagram posts featuring bodypositive, appearance-ideal, or appearance-neutral content on young women's self-compassion. In each experiment, we considered trait self-compassion and disordered eating symptoms as potential moderators of these effects, and considered self-evaluative and self-comparative thoughts as potential mediators. In Study 1, participants (N = 142) viewed body-positive body photos, body-positive quotes, fitspiration body photos, or landscapes. In Study 2, participants (N = 105) viewed photos of the same individuals' faces with or without makeup, or landscapes. As predicted, viewing content consistent with appearance ideals (fitspiration bodies and makeup faces) had significant detrimental effects on state self-compassion and thoughts about the self, relative to viewing body-positive content (body-positive bodies, body-positive quotes, and no-makeup faces) or appearance-neutral content (landscapes), especially among participants with low trait self-compassion or high disordered eating symptoms. We also found that relative to viewing landscapes, exposure to body-positive content increased state self-compassion and had no observed detrimental effects, even among participants low in trait self-compassion or high in disordered eating symptoms. Furthermore, the negative effects of exposure to appearance ideals for state self-compassion were mediated by more self-critical thoughts and unfavorable self-comparisons, while the benefits of viewing body-positive content were mediated by more self-affirming thoughts. Our results extend previous research on the psychological effects of body-focused media by further considering self-compassion as a relevant outcome variable and moderator. Public Policy Relevance StatementViewing social media content portraying unattainable appearance ideals reduced women's state selfcompassion, and this was especially true for women who were already struggling to accept themselves and their bodies. In contrast, viewing body-positive social media content increased women's state selfcompassion, by evoking more accepting thoughts about themselves.

Enhancing brand equity through branded content experience on social media: Developing and testing a moderated mediation model.

“…In other words, BCE comprises different cognitive and affective experiences, as well as a combination of both (Lee, 2024; Waqas, Salleh & Hamzah, 2021). These experiences are conjured when consumers directly or indirectly interact with branded content on social media (Hamzah et al, 2021; Rutter et al, 2024).…”