A Critique of Psychology Journal

Summary of Article

The purpose of the presented article was to test the effects of social class and body image on self-esteem. The research conducted by Caposella (2008) asked the question, “Do the images people are exposed to on a daily basis from magazine ads to billboards affect women's self esteem?” It was hypothesized that participants would rate a lower self-esteem when presented with images of the ideal model type women. It was also hypothesized that the participants would rate a lower self-esteem when presented with images of women in a higher social class.

Caposella first started by gathering the subjects to her study. The participants selected were a convenience sample of students from a university. There were a total of forty females, all over the age of 18. Next the materials were gathered in order to complete the experiment.

The questionnaire asked participants to give the job title of the women shown as well as answer questions about themselves, the questions rated their self-esteem using the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale. Once all participants and materials were obtained the experiment began. First, participants were given an informed consent form giving them the option of proceeding with the experiment and also letting they know they could withdraw at any time during the experiment. Next, participants were misled and told that the study was about stereotyping in the workforce.

The results of this experiment showed that neither the images of the body types, nor the social class provided any significant impact on the self-esteem ratings. The results indicated that social class and body image have no significant effects on how the women rated their self- esteem. In all, the hypothesis was not supported by the results of this experiment.The conclusions drawn by Caposella at the end of the experiment, was that prior ...