Copper (1994) investigated women who travel from one culture, where images of slim women are few and far between, to another culture where they a frequent. Copper (1994) found these women felt more body conscience. As teenager you tend to pay more attention to images in the magazines, where as with age you read different magazines (which feature these images less frequently) and probable have less time to read as many as a teenage girl does.
The biological explanation of anorexia nervous suggests that, abnormal levels of noradrenaline in anorexics (Fava et al, 1989), this corroborates the theory that the hypothalamus may contribute towards eating disorders (Keesey and Corbett 1983). These two theories could explain why teenage girl tend to suffer from anorexia more often than women of a more mature age. Teenagers go through a lot of changes, hormones play a large part of these changes, there for hormone imbalances are likely and often do happen weather it results in physical or psychological abnormalities.
Factors that could affect my results include demand characteristics. This means that participants might have filled in the chart the way they felt I wished them to rather than give their true feelings or opinions. My sample could also be considered bias due to the fact that I only asked women, I chose to ask only women as to get clear results, for it may be easy to get the gender differences confused with the age differences. If I were to carry out another investigation on weather the age difference effects male body perception as well as women’s.
Conclusion
I have found that there is a correlation between age and perception of a desirable body weight. This experiment however, did have limitations and to investigate this theory fully I would have to take this into account and test a number of other factors.
Abstract
I aim to investigate the effects of age on body perception, by asking teenage girls and women over forty to fill in a chart. The chart ranges from skeleton thin to medically obese. They then show what they believe to be their ideal, current and most desirable to the opposite sex. Correctional research and unrelated design will serve my investigation best. My results were above critical therefore the more
mature a woman is the more at ease she is with her body. In further research I would like to investigate weather age has the same effect on male body perception.
Table of Contents
- Abstract
- Introduction
- Aims
- Hypothesis
- Method
- Results
- Discussion
- References
- Appendices
References
Mike Cardwell, Liz Clark, Claire Meldrum (2001) Psychology for A2 Level. HarperCollins Publishers Limited.
Humphreys, P. Cocks, R. Crampton, C. Fulcher, E. Mahoney, B. Ward, S. (2002) Exam Revision Notes. AS/A2-Level AQA (A) Psychology, 34-45.
