Validation of the Social Physique Anxiety Scale and the study of body concerns in the gay and lesbian community.
Item
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Title
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Validation of the Social Physique Anxiety Scale and the study of body concerns in the gay and lesbian community.
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Identifier
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AAI3115230
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identifier
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3115230
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Creator
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Borkowski, Thomas M.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Jeffrey T. Parsons
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Date
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2004
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Psychology, Social | Psychology, Personality
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Abstract
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This paper examines whether specific discrepancies between self-beliefs and self-guides regarding body weight are associated with different types of body concerns. Specifically, the degree to which discrepancies between actual weight and ideal weight (actual:ideal) predicts body dissatisfaction and discrepancies between actual weight and ought weight (actual:ought) predicts Social Physique Anxiety (SPA) was examined in a sample of the gay, lesbian, and bisexual community in the New York Metropolitan Area. In addition to weight discrepancies, this study examined the degree to which the predisposition to experience anxiety predicts SPA. A pilot study was first conducted to validate the SPAS in a sample of 197 gay/bisexual men and lesbian/bisexual women from a New York City Gay and Lesbian Pride event in June 2001. Next, a total of 239 gay/bisexual men and lesbian/bisexual women completed a paper-and-pencil survey at the same event in June 2002. Results indicate that although lesbians/bisexual women reported greater weight discrepancies than the gay/bisexual men in the sample, gay/bisexual men reported similar levels of Body Dissatisfaction and SPA as the lesbian/bisexual women. Actual:ideal weight discrepancies were found to predict Body Dissatisfaction scores and actual:ought weight discrepancies were found to predict SPAS scores. Once trait anxiety was added into the regression equation, actual:ought weight discrepancies did not contribute to the prediction of SPAS; however Body Dissatisfaction and trait anxiety scores accounted for a total of 60% of the variance in SPAS scores. This study used the principles of the self-discrepancy theory (Higgins, 1987) to help understand different types of affect associated with perceptions of body weight. Although the theory was supported, the focus on specific self-beliefs and self-guides regarding body weight resulted in a high correlation between the two weight discrepancy variables that were measured. Future research should continue to use the self-discrepancy framework to study body concerns as it offers a parsimonious solution to a complex issue. Utilizing the Selves Questionnaire (Higgins, Bond, Klein, & Straumann, 1986) to obtain global attributes may reduce the correlations observed between the actual:ideal and actual:ought discrepancies and provide a more complete approach to studying body concerns such as body dissatisfaction and SPA.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
