A study of young female Instagram users in Italy has found that participants who are shown a digitally enhanced image of a woman are more prone to accept cosmetic surgery for social reasons and to idealize being thin compared to participants who were shown both the enhanced and the original image. The degree of body dissatisfaction did not differ between groups. The study was published in Aesthetic Plastic Surgery.
At the moment, young people spend lots of time on social network sites. Estimates state that, in many areas, an average young adult spends more than two hours every day on these sites or interacting through them. A prominent feature of social networking sites is the presence of many pictures of attractive women. Many of those pictures have been digitally enhanced to make the person in them even more attractive.
These digitally enhanced pictures often show levels of attractiveness that cannot be really matched in real life. Studies have shown that viewing these images, particularly for users of social network sites that are focused on pictures and the physical appearance of users, can produce negative psychological consequences.
Comparing oneself with digitally enhanced images, while often not being able to tell that the images are digitally enhanced, can make individuals become dissatisfied with their own real body. This can, in turn, lead to more positive attitude to cosmetic surgery in a hope that these procedures can make one’s real body as attractive as the digitally enhanced models. This seems to particularly be the case among young females users of social networking sites.
Study author Amanda Nerini and her colleagues wanted to experimentally evaluate the effects of exposure to a digitally enhanced image along with the original picture (the “before” and “after” image) along with a disclaimer that the image has been digitally retouched on young women’s thin-ideal internalization, body dissatisfaction and acceptance of cosmetic surgery. The thin-ideal internalization refers to the extent to which a person considers being thin as an ideal and desires his/her body to look very thin.
The study involved 105 young women aged 18-30, all active Instagram users with an average body mass index of 22.33—indicating a typical weight range. All but two participants were Italian; half held high school diplomas, while 40% possessed bachelor’s degrees.
Participants were randomly divided into three groups with 35 women in each. The researchers showed a digitally enhanced image of a young woman to the first group. The image was shown in a frame that made it look like it was taken from Instagram. The digital enhancement of the image consisted of modifying parts of the young woman’s body to make her more in line with the ideal of thinness. The rest of the image was unaltered.
The second group viewed the same digitally enhanced image of the young woman along with the same original, unaltered image and a disclaimer stating: “Several photographs that are shared on social network sites are modified through the use of popular, easy-to-use software. The images below show the changes made and allow a comparison of the images (i.e., before and after retouching).” The third group, serving as a control, viewed an untouched photo of a dog resting on a bed.
Immediately after viewing the images, participants in the groups that observed the woman’s image assessed her attractiveness and commented on potential image retouching. Group 2 participants also evaluated the woman’s attractiveness prior to enhancement. All participants then completed assessments on thin-ideal internalization (e.g., “I want my body to look very thin”), body dissatisfaction, and cosmetic surgery acceptance.
The acceptance of cosmetic surgery assessment consisted of three subscales evaluating different types of motivation for cosmetic surgery. These were intrapersonal (e.g. “It makes sense to have minor cosmetic surgery rather than spend years feeling bad about the way you look”), social (e.g. “I would seriously consider having cosmetic surgery if my partner thought it was a good idea”), and a subscale estimating whether the respondent would consider cosmetic surgery at all (e.g. “I would never have any kind of plastic surgery”).
The results showed that participants rated the woman in the digitally enhanced image as more attractive than in the unenhanced image. Participants in the first group, who viewed only the enhanced image, were much less likely to report that the image had been enhanced, compared to participants in group 2, who clearly knew that it was.
Participant in group 2, who saw both the enhanced and the original image, along with a disclaimer, had lower scores on thin-ideal internalization than group 1 (those who viewed only the enhanced image). Group 2 participants were also less accepting of cosmetic surgery for social reasons (the social subscale). Since the groups were created through randomization, the researchers consider these differences to be the consequence of the image(s) participants viewed.
There were no differences between the three groups in body dissatisfaction, willingness to undergo cosmetic surgery for intrapersonal reasons, nor in the overall willingness to undergo cosmetic surgery.
“Instagram is a social network site that is based primarily on image-related activities, and several studies have demonstrated that its use is associated with negative effects related to body image evaluations by young women. Awareness that images of women posted on Instagram might have been enhanced had a protective effect against the desire to undergo cosmetic surgery for social reasons; therefore, the exposure to Instagram posts informing social networking site users that the idealized images has been digitally edited could result in less consideration being given to cosmetic procedures as a means of improving one’s appearance to conform with mutable social norms,” the study authors concluded.
The study makes a valuable contribution to the scientific understanding of psychological effects of social media contents. However, it also has limitations that need to be taken into account. Notably, the study exclusively included young women and their number in the study was small. Also, participants viewed the images much longer than they would typically observe such an image on Instagram.
The study, “Retouched or Unaltered? That is the Question. Body Image and Acceptance of Cosmetic Surgery in Young Female Instagram Users”, was authored by Amanda Nerini, Camilla Matera, Francesca Romani, Cristian Di Gesto, and Giulia Rosa Policardo.
