The relationship between body dissatisfaction and attentional bias to thin bodies in Malaysian Chinese and White Australian women: a dot probe study

Autor: T. House, H. K. Wong, N. W. Samuel, I. D. Stephen, K. R. Brooks, H. Bould, A. S. Attwood, I. S. Penton-Voak
Jazyk: angličtina
Rok vydání: 2023
Předmět:
Zdroj: Royal Society Open Science, Vol 10, Iss 9 (2023)
Druh dokumentu: article
ISSN: 2054-5703
DOI: 10.1098/rsos.230674
Popis: Studies suggest that an attentional bias to thin bodies is common among those with high levels of body dissatisfaction, which is a risk factor for, and symptom of, various eating disorders. However, these studies have predominantly been conducted in Western countries with body stimuli involving images of White people. In a preregistered study, we recruited 150 Malaysian Chinese women and 150 White Australian women for a study using standardized images of East Asian and White Australian bodies. To measure attentional bias to thin bodies, participants completed a dot probe task which presented images of women who self-identified their ethnicity as East Asian or as White Australian. Contrary to previous findings, we found no evidence for an association between body dissatisfaction and attentional bias to thin bodies. This lack of association was not affected by participant ethnicity (Malaysian Chinese versus White Australian) or ethnic congruency between participants and body stimuli (own-ethnicity versus other-ethnicity). However, the internal consistency of the dot probe task was poor. These results suggest that either the relationship between body dissatisfaction and attentional bias to thin bodies is not robust, or the dot probe task may not be a reliable measure of attentional bias to body size.
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