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Mass Media Beauty Standards, Body Surveillance, and Relationship Satisfaction within Romantic Couples

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  • Chiara Rollero

    (Department of Psychology, University of Turin, 10124 Torino, Italy)

Abstract

As part of objectification processes, individuals engage in body surveillance, whereby they constantly assess the extent to which their external appearance conforms to culturally valued ideals. Mass media play a key role in fostering the objectification and internalization of media beauty standards and increases body surveillance. At the individual level, the literature has largely demonstrated that body surveillance leads to a variety of negative psychological outcomes, but little research has focused on the consequences of body surveillance in the context of romantic relationships. Using dyadic data from couples who identified as heterosexual, the present study examined relations among internalization of media standards, body surveillance, surveillance of the partner’s body, surveillance from the partner, and relationship satisfaction. There were 438 participants (219 couples) recruited using snowball sampling. They were surveyed with an anonymous online questionnaire. Results showed that internalization of media standards was related to body surveillance in both men and women, and to surveillance of the partner’s body and relationship satisfaction in men only. For both sexes, surveillance of the partner’s body was negatively associated with relationship satisfaction. For women only, surveillance from the partner was also negatively related to relationship satisfaction. Implications are discussed.

Suggested Citation

  • Chiara Rollero, 2022. "Mass Media Beauty Standards, Body Surveillance, and Relationship Satisfaction within Romantic Couples," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(7), pages 1-8, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:7:p:3833-:d:778010
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Meysam H. Barzoki & Leila Mohtasham & Mahshid Shahidi & Mohamed Tavakol, 2017. "Self-Objectification and Self-Sexualization Behavior within Consumer Culture," Applied Research in Quality of Life, Springer;International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies, vol. 12(2), pages 425-438, June.
    2. Petal Grower & L. Monique Ward & Jolien Trekels, 2019. "Expanding Models Testing Media Contributions to Self-Sexualization," SAGE Open, , vol. 9(2), pages 21582440198, May.
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    Cited by:

    1. Fabrizio Santoniccolo & Tommaso Trombetta & Maria Noemi Paradiso & Luca Rollè, 2023. "Gender and Media Representations: A Review of the Literature on Gender Stereotypes, Objectification and Sexualization," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(10), pages 1-15, May.

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