This document reports on an investigation focusing on how the content of introductory college psychology texts' content related to physical attractiveness and self-esteem. The primary objective of this study was to review how recently published life-span developmental texts present physical development in middle childhood as related to traditional…

Past research has demonstrated a relationship between children's physical attractiveness and their self-esteem. Other research has found that learning disabled children are at risk for having low self-esteem. This study examined the relationship between self-esteem and facial attractiveness in learning disabled children. Subjects were 20 diagnosed…

Dissatisfaction with body image among women has become a major psychological and physical contemporary problem. This study is among the few to empirically suggest that overall body satisfaction is strongly related to perceived discrepancy of one's body image from ideal societal standards of attractiveness. This study also identifies the personal…

Franzoi and Shields (1984) described the development of a 35-item scale for measuring body esteem and discussed the factor structure, reliability, and validity of that scale. They reported finding three dimensions of body esteem for young men and women in the scale they developed, although the factors differed between the sexes and were more…

This paper explores how feelings of self-hatred in African Americans are perpetuated through media and the standard physical and ideological manifestations of Christianity. The notion that skin that is closer to white and hair that is closer to white are both more desirable attributes is a dominant theme underlying the African American experience.…

A study explored the degree to which males and females engage in social comparisons and the underlying factors that comprise and relate to social comparisons with advertising images for both boys and girls. Data were gathered from a sample of 225 females and 214 males between the ages of 15 and 18 from a midwestern high school. The same survey was…

This study surveys African Americans to assess perceptions of and life experiences with the issue of skin tone. Thirty-seven African American adults agreed to complete a survey packet and participate in a semi-structured focus group discussion. Participants completed the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, the Multigroup Ethnic Identity Measure, the Skin…