The Mediating Role of Internalization of Societal Ideals in the Relationship Between Sociocultural Attitudes and Body Appearance Dissatisfaction

Aim of this research was to determine the mediating role of internalization of societal ideals in the relationship between sociocultural attitudes and body appearance dissatisfaction.

Based on a correlation design, 270 client (women) aged 20- 40 years to beauty centers of Tehran were selected with convenience sampling and complete Multidimensional Body-Self Relations (Cash,1997) and Sociocultural Attitudes Towards Appearance -3 (Thompson et al, 2000) questionnaires. In order to analyze data, path analysis used.

The Findings indicated that the model has an acceptable fit between the variables .Direct effect from importance (ß=0/122, p < 0/05) and pressure (ß=0/141, p < 0/05) sub scales from sociocultural attitudes, and direct effect from general internalization (ß=0/276, p < 0/001) from internalization of societal ideals have negatively significant association with body appearance dissatisfaction. Direct effect from athlete internalization (ß=0/222, p < 0/001) has a positively significant association with body appearance dissatisfaction. This findings showed that sociocultural attitudes through the internalization of societal ideals has a significant indirect effect on body appearance dissatisfaction. Also, Predictive variables can be explained 17% of the variance of body appearance dissatisfaction.

According to the findings of this research, the factors regarding internalization of societal ideals could be beneficial in prevention of body appearance dissatisfaction and related problems.