A word-stem completion task to assess implicit processing of appearance-related information
Received 24 December 2002; accepted 10 September 2003.
Abstract
Objective
This paper reports on the development and utility of a new implicit measure of appearance-related information processing.
Methods
A 20-item word-stem completion task was constructed, in which each word stem could be completed with either an appearance-related word or at least one non-appearance alternative. The measure was tested in four different experiments, most investigating the impact of acute exposure to media-portrayed thin idealised female images.
Results
Exposure to media images or other appearance-related material led to the generation of more appearance- or weight-related words in both female and male samples.
Conclusion
It was concluded that the word-stem task has empirical utility as a simple, self-paced and sensitive outcome measure in experimental studies of media exposure. We conceptualise the word-stem task as a measure of appearance- and weight-schema activation.
ABSTRACT