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Experimental manipulation of muscularity preferences through visual diet and associative learning

Jacques, K.A.; Evans, E.H.; Boothroyd, L.G.

Experimental manipulation of muscularity preferences through visual diet and associative learning Thumbnail


Authors

Katy Jacques katy.a.jacques@durham.ac.uk
PGR Student Doctor of Philosophy



Abstract

Body preferences are somewhat flexible and this variability may be the result of one’s visual diet (whereby mere exposure to certain bodies shifts preferences), associative learning mechanisms (whereby cues to health and status within the population are internalised and affect body preferences), or a mixture of both visual diet and associative learning effects. We tested how these factors may drive changes in preferences for muscularity in male bodies across a male and female sample. Three studies were conducted where participants viewed manipulation images of high and/or low muscle mass males which were either aspirational (high status clothing and posture) and/or neutral (no obvious cues to status). Preferences for muscularity were recorded before and after exposure to such manipulation images to assess whether body preferences had changed following manipulation. We found evidence for both the visual diet and associative learning hypotheses. Exposure to non-muscular male bodies decreased preferences for muscular bodies irrespective of image valence. Exposure to aspirational non-muscular male bodies alongside neutral muscular male bodies also led to a decrease in muscularity preferences. Further, when manipulation conditions are less obviously skewed towards a particular body type, preferences still shifted in the direction of the most prevalent body type, suggesting that demand characteristics are unlikely to have confounded results of previous adaptation experiments with more obvious manipulations.

Citation

Jacques, K., Evans, E., & Boothroyd, L. (2021). Experimental manipulation of muscularity preferences through visual diet and associative learning. PLoS ONE, 16(8), Article e0255403. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0255403

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Jul 15, 2021
Online Publication Date Aug 11, 2021
Publication Date 2021
Deposit Date Aug 9, 2021
Publicly Available Date Mar 28, 2024
Journal PLoS ONE
Publisher Public Library of Science
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 16
Issue 8
Article Number e0255403
DOI https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0255403
Publisher URL https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0255403

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Published Journal Article (852 Kb)
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Publisher Licence URL
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Copyright Statement
© 2021 Jacques et al. This is an open
access article distributed under the terms of the
Creative Commons Attribution License, which
permits unrestricted use, distribution, and
reproduction in any medium, provided the original
author and source are credited





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