The Relationship between Appearance Self-Esteem - Lab Report Example

The relationship between appearance self esteem and body image among men and women Literature exist on significance of self-esteem and its relationship with body image. Existing data have subjective element but majority suggest a significant relationship between self-esteem and body image and a difference across gender. The study aimed at investigating these aspects from a population segment and established lack of significance in both aspects. Introduction Every object has a value that may be absolute or may be relative to perceived value in the object’s environment. uman beings also have value that may be derived from objective factors such as wealth or subjective factors such as values and self confidence. Self esteem defines a person’s self or potentials and is largely subjective. Psychological and material factors around a person are incident to self esteem. For women, discrimination is one of the significant factors to self esteem and many of them are susceptible. When discriminated against, many women tend to assume the condition they undergo and they lose their self worth. The nature of the society in which people live also determines a person’s self esteem. Those that the society offers a voice tend to have a higher self esteem that those without a voice and the traditional set up in which women lacked the voice suggest a low self esteem and higher level significance among men than among women. Conservative women also appear to rely on the society for determination of their self worth and this makes them vulnerable to opinions that may at times not be accurate (Mruk, 2006). Self esteem is a significant factor in a person’s life because it dictates mental and physical health. Carr argues that people with high self esteem have greater strength and resilience that those with low self esteem. In addition, self esteem induces better health (Carr, 2004). Even though objective data are not consistent with people’s perception, subjective rationale associates self esteem with success factors such as in intelligence, interpersonal relationships, and appearance (Baumeister and Bushman, 2013). Zeigler-Hill’s argument that self esteem is an interpersonal indicator, a factor that establishes significance of people’s perception of a person’s body, also identifies the role of self esteem body image as erceived by self or by other people (Zeigler-Hill, 2013). Empirical studies have also explored the self esteem concept and its effects on people. A study among Chinese university students, for example, aimed at investigating moderating effects of self worth contingencies on the relationship between self esteem and attitude towards self as well as self competence. The study focused on global perspective with six domains ad while this did not identify significance, a modification that classified the target opulation into two domain identifies significance of contingency self worth as a determinant of the relationship between self esteem and attitude towards self. Significance in the latter results suggest that self esteem is significant to self image (Geng and Jiang, 2013). An independent study on eating habit, body dissatisfaction, and self esteem also identifies a potential association betweeb self esteem and body image. Acknowledging esistence of literature with divergent results on the relationship between the three factors, the authors explored pairwise association between the three variables. They used the Negative Physical Self Scale-Fatness, the State Self-Esteem Scale, and the Three Factor Eating Questionnaire Revised 18-Item Version to collect data from 376 chinese students. Self esteem reported significant mediator role in the relationship between body dissatisfaction and eating behavior through restrained eating, an indicator of the significant effects of self image on perceived body dissatisfaction (Kong, Zang, You, Fan, Tiang and Zhou, 2013). Armitage however notes that perceived body image may not necessarily be due to self-esteem. Using 220 adolescents with a self affirmation treatment, before data collection on possible threats, body satisfaction, and self esteem, self affirmation was significant among girls with moderation effect of self esteem. Self affirmation was however not significal in the considered adolescent boys (Armitage, 2012). While literature identifies significance of self esteem to people’s self worth and secondary effects on health and activities in which people engage, empirical data offers conflicting intormation on significance of self-esteem on body image. Data for evaluating the relationship between self esteem and perception of body image are also largely subjective and this challenges validity of the developed knowledge for generalization. There is therefore need to establish the relationship for each sub population of interest and this forms the basis of this study. Aims and hypotheses The study aims at investigating difference in effects of appearance self esteem on body image by gender and the relationship between appearance self esteem and body image. It explores the objectives by seeking to answer the following research questions. Do women have a lower appearance self esteem in terms of body image than men have? Is higher self esteem associated with lower body image? This leads to the following hypotheses. HO: Women do not have lower appearance self esteem in terms of body image than men have HA: Women have lower appearance self esteem in terms of body image than men have HO: Self esteem is not inversely proportional to body image. HA: Self esteem is inversely proportional to body image. Method Survey design was used for the study. Data was collected from research participants responses that were evaluated on predetermined likert scale for quantitative values of self esteem and body image. Participants’ BMI was observed from measurement scale. Survey design was preferred because of its independent nature. It does not relies on treatment measures like experimental and quasi-experimental designs do. In addition, the lack of treatment in a survey design ensures limited legal and ethical issues to a study. The scope of the study, observational, also identifies suitability of the less straining survey design (Gravetter and Forzano, 2011). Body image is the independent variable while self esteem is the dependent variable. the study did not consider controls because of the assumed survey design. Adults formed the population of study and simple random sampling was used to recruit research participants. The sampling strategy was preferred because of its freedom from sampling bias and its ability to generate a diverse sample for generalizability (Maxfield and Babbie, 2014). Online social networks were used to recruit participants who were then selected at random. Recidency within the locality of study was the inclusion criteria to facilitate access during data collection. Participants were then contacted on phone, scope of the study explained to them, and appointment made for data collection. The participants were required to sign a consent form before participation. Usingpredetermined scales, data was collected and compted for self-esteem, social self-esteem, and appearance self esteem. Data was also collected on gender and body type. Results The following table summarizes descriptive statistics of appearance self esteem by male and female. Table 1: Mead and standard deviation of appearance self esteem Gender N Mean Std. Deviation Appearence_Self_Esteem_A Male 16 3.8958 .59590 Female 22 3.6364 .95068 Student t-test was then conducted to determine differences across gender and the following table summarizes the results. Table 2: Independent sample t-test results t df Sig. (2-tailed) Appearance Self-Esteem (A) 0.961 36 0.343/2 (as it is 1-tailed) Correlation analysis between body type and different self esteem aspects was also condicted and the following table summarizes the results. Table 3: Correlations Body Type Difference Self Esteem (P) Social Self-Esteem (S) Appearance Self Esteem (A) Body Type Difference Pearson Correlation 1 -.247 -.311 -.241 Sig. (2-tailed) .130 .058 .144 N 39 39 38 38 Self_Esteem_P Pearson Correlation -.247 1 .611** .397* Sig. (2-tailed) .130 .000 .014 N 39 39 38 38 Social_self_esteem_S Pearson Correlation -.311 .611** 1 .427** Sig. (2-tailed) .058 .000 .008 N 38 38 38 37 Appearence_Self_Esteem_A Pearson Correlation -.241 .397* .427** 1 Sig. (2-tailed) .144 .014 .008 N 38 38 37 38 **. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). *. Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed). Discussion The study considered 16 males and 22 females and males reported a higher appearance self esteem score (M=3.8958, SD=0.5959) than females (M=3.6364, SD=0.95068). This difference was however insignificant (t(36)= 0.961, p=0.171> 0.05). This observation disputes Armitage’s findings of differences across gender. Correlation coefficients suggests inverse correlation between body types and the different aspects of self esteem (self esteem=-0.427, social self esteem= -0.311, appearance self esteem= -0.241). These correlation coefficients are however insignificant (p= 0.13, 0.053, 0.144> 0.05) respectively for self esteem, social self esteem, and appearance self esteem. Even though existing literature suggests a significant relationship between self esteem, and by implication appearance self esteem, and body image, together with significance of age in the relationship, the study finds that gender is not significant in the relationship between appearance self esteem and body image and self esteem does not depend on body image. These findings do not however discredit existing literature because of the subjective nature of the subject that may vary across regions. A more comprehensive study that can compare the relationship between self esteem and body image across regions to develop a model for coefficient of variation in the relationship across regions is recommended. References Armitage, C. (2012). Evidence that self-affirmation reduces body dissatisfaction by basing self-esteem on domains other than body weight and shape. Journal of Child Psychology and Ppsychiatry 53(1), 81-88. Baumeister, R. and Bushman, B. (2013). Social psychology and human nature, comprehensive edition. Belmont, CA: Cengage Learning. Carr, A. (2004). Positive psychology: The science of happiness and human strengths. New York, NY: Psychology Press. Geng, L. and Jiang, T. (2013). Contigencies of self-worth moderate the effects of specific self-esteem on self-liking or self competence. Social behavior and Personality 41(1), 95-108. Gravetter, F. and Forzano, L. (2011). Research methods for the behavioral sciences. Belmont, CA: Cengage Learning. Kong, F et. al. (2013). Body dissatisfaction and restrained eating: Mediating effects of self-esteem. Social behavior and Personality 41(7), 1165-1170. Maxfield, M. and Babbie, E. (2014). Research methods for criminal justice and criminology. Belmont, CA: Cengage Learning. Mruk, C. (2006). Self-esteem research, theory, and practice: Toward a positive psychology of self esteem. New York, NY: Springer Publishing Company. Zeigler-Hill, V. (2013). Self-esteem. New York, NY: Psychology Press. Read More