Love Thyself Before Loving Others? A Qualitative and Quantitative Analysis of Gender Differences in Body Image and Romantic Love

Abstract

The present study was designed to explore the intersection of body esteem, romantic love, and gender through qualitative and quantitative analyses. Male (n= 107) and female (n=113) undergraduates completed the Body Esteem Scale (BES), four Romantic Love Experiences Scale (RLES) subscales, and two open-ended questions about the interrelation between body esteem and relationships. For both genders, significant correlations emerged between the BES and RLES, suggesting a link between body experience and romantic relationships. Regression analyses indicated that two individual RLES variables (i.e., trust and jealousy) predicted body esteem for women but not for men. Qualitative data coding revealed that, compared to men, women were more likely to disclose that body image influenced sexual relations and that relationships affected their self-confidence. These findings illustrate the interpersonal dimensions of body image and highlight the value of quantitative and qualitative methodologies.Gender differences and similarities in body image and in romantic love experiences have been amply documented, yet few researchers have examined the complex associations among gender, body image, and relationships. As myriad interconnected socialization processes underlie norms and rules about gender, body, and romance, the intersection of these processes warrants closer examination. In the present study we explored this intersection by asking how men's and women's body images relate to their experiences in romantic relationships. Through a combination of quantitative and qualitative techniques, we sought to expand the research literature on gender and body image within a nonclinical college population. Body Image and GenderBody image is a social construct that varies as a function of differential gender socialization (Cash, Thériault, & Annis, 2004). Frederickson, Roberts, Noll, Quinn, and Twenge (1998) argued that the cultural environment of sexual objectification socializes women to treat themselves as aesthetic objects; by internalizing others' responses to their physical appearance, women are conditioned to overemphasize the importance of good looks. Further, Frank and Thomas (2003) observed that for undergraduate women, gender role socialization (as measured by the tendency to evaluate oneself in relation to others and to suppress one's thoughts to avoid confrontation) was related to maladaptive eating-related thoughts and bulimic symptoms, which suggests that gender role socialization may have important implications for eating disorders and body dissatisfaction.Men, in contrast, do not appear to experience the same level of objectification as women (McKinley, 1998). As Bordo (1999) asserted, "Male scientists and philosophers have created a nearly unbroken historical stream of tractsSex Roles (2007) 56: [13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21]

Pathoplasticity of bulimic features and interpersonal problems

“…10 Research also suggests that, like eating disorders themselves, the eating disorderinterpersonal problem relation is stronger in women than men, 11 and that women with bulimia nervosa tend to experience more interpersonal difficulties than women with anorexia nervosa. 12,13 Brown et al 14 found that, whereas women with binge-eating disorder tend to eat more than others and women with anorexia nervosa tend to eat less than others across social situations, women with bulimia nervosa tend to eat more on average, but less when social cues regarding food intake are elicited, further suggesting an important relation between interpersonal problems and bulimic features.…”

Interpersonal trust and market value moderates the bias in women’s preferences away from attractive high-status men

“…It is important to note that trust and self-perceived desirability are separate constructs; the former relates to a general expectation of how people will behave while the latter relates to a perception of how attractive one generally appears to opposite-sex others. Nevertheless, whilst we conceive of these variables as being distinct, there is evidence that they covary to some degree (Ambwani & Strauss, 2007;Cash, Theriault, & Annis, 2004). In fact, Ambwani and Strauss (2007) have shown that a combined measure of trust and jealousy may predict body esteem in women.…”

“…Nevertheless, whilst we conceive of these variables as being distinct, there is evidence that they covary to some degree (Ambwani & Strauss, 2007;Cash, Theriault, & Annis, 2004). In fact, Ambwani and Strauss (2007) have shown that a combined measure of trust and jealousy may predict body esteem in women.…”

Fat Talk and Body Dissatisfaction Among College Dancers

“…The BES is internally reliable with an alpha range of .78 to .87 for its subscales (Franzoi and Shields 1984). Similar to other researchers' use of the BES (Ambwani and Strauss 2007;Steinfeldt et al 2011), BES total scores rather than subscale scores were used to define body satisfaction as a general construct. For this study, Cronbach's alpha was .91 for the control group, .92 for the D/NDM group, and .95 for the D/DM group.…”