Body image and dating relationships amongs female adolescents
Date
2006-03
Authors
De Villiers, Minette
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Stellenbosch : University of Stellenbosch
Abstract
Body image and dating relationships are two of the most important topics in the lives of
the female adolescents. Yet, not much South African research has been done on either of
these themes with adolescent populations and no research could be found to investigate a
possible relationship between these two important aspects, both internationally and
locally.
Therefore, the primary aim of this study was to investigate the potential relationship
between female adolescents’ body image and their romantic relationships. Specifically,
the aim was to determine if a relationship existed between participants’ self-rated
attractiveness and body dissatisfaction, and their relationship status and romantic
relationship satisfaction.
There were two secondary aims. The first was to investigate how aspects like
participants’ culture, age and body size were related to their body image and the second
was to determine if aspects like participants’ culture, age and body size were related to
their relationship status and satisfaction with their romantic relationships.
Questionnaires were distributed to Afrikaans- and English- speaking White girls,
Afrikaansspeaking Coloured girls and isiXhosaspeaking girls at four urban, coeducational,
secondary schools and 511 questionnaires were completed. Participants selfreported
their height and weight, self-rated their facial and bodily attractiveness on a 7-
point scale, and completed two measures of body dissatisfaction: the Eating Disorder
Inventory (EDI) Body Dissatisfaction subscale (Garner, Olmstead, & Polivy, 1983) and
the Body Cathexis Scale (BCS) (Secord & Jourard, 1953). Participants also indicated
their current relationship status using five categories: has never dated anyone, not dating
anyone currently, casually dating one or more people, dating one person exclusively, and
engaged or planning to marry, and completed the Relationship Assessment Scale (RAS)
(Hendrick, 1988), a measure of relationship satisfaction. With regard to the primary aim of the study, results show that there were significant
relationships between some of the measures of body image and relationship status for the
total sample. In general, it was found that the girls who were involved in exclusive
relationships at the time of the study had better body image than the girls who were not.
Yet, results for this relationship were different for the different cultural and body mass
index groups.
With regard to the relationship between body image and relationship satisfaction, the
Body Cathexis Scale scores significantly predicted participants’ satisfaction with their
romantic relationships. Yet both weight and culture were also found to play a role in the
relationship between body image and relationship satisfaction.
With regard to the secondary aims of the study, culture was found to be related to body
image, body mass index, relationship status and relationship satisfaction, while age
played a role in participants’ body mass index and relationship status, and body mass
index was related to body image, but not to relationship status and relationship
satisfaction. Therefore, participants’ culture and body mass index were significant with
regard to body image and romantic relationships, but was also found to play a significant
role in the relationship between these two.
Description
Thesis (MA (Psychology))--University of Stellenbosch, 2006.
Keywords
Body image in adolescence, Dating (Social customs), Teenage girls -- Psychology, Teenagers -- Dating, Dissertations -- Psychology, Theses -- Psychology