Browsing by Author "Tobin, Leah"

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    Women's Attention as a Function of Body Dissatisfaction and Images of Thin Models: An Eye-Tracking Study
    (2015-09-28) Tobin, Leah; von Ranson, Kristin
    To gain insight into cognitive underpinnings of body dissatisfaction, we compared attentional biases in body-dissatisfied and body-satisfied women, as well as the influence of thin media images on attention. Women (42 body-dissatisfied and 40 body-satisfied) completed a paradigm measuring attention to fat- and thin-related words via eye gaze, both before and after exposure to images of thin models. Participants self-reported on height, weight, and body dissatisfaction. Body-dissatisfied women paid more attention to weight words (both fat and thin) than body-satisfied women. Exposure to thin model images did not affect attention to weight words. Body mass index was related to attention to fat words only prior to image exposure. Our findings suggest that body-dissatisfied women display an attentional bias to weight words but not in the direction predicted by the cognitive model of eating disorders, and that brief exposures to models do not affect the attentional biases.