The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of fitspiration, which is a modern social media trend that follows fitness- or health-related pictures with quotes. To be more exact, the study focuses on how the aforementioned online tendency impacts female users’ body satisfaction or the establishment of negative moods. Therefore, the authors, Emilia G. Rounds and Lauren A. Stutts, explore this matter to prove the hypothesis, which is that fitspiration adversely affects the women’s body image of the trend follower or accident viewer, true or false.
Consequently, the research method and hypotheses contributed to the authors opting to use correlation research. The variables analyzed are not manipulated by the researchers, and neither are controlled (Rounds & Stutts, 2021). Besides, fitspiration’s impact on body satisfaction and mood is investigated with the correlation to Instagram use. The authors also aimed to understand the relationship between the trend’s influence on the number of followers and accounts followed (Rounds & Stutts, 2021). That is why the exploration of the relationship between the two variables uncontrolled by researchers makes the study correlative.
The research itself is based on the analysis of the women’s survey answers to the questions primarily related to the body image that may have been affected by fitspiration. It was critical to ensure that the participants identified as women and were attending a liberal arts program, so all the candidates were requested to complete three questionnaires to confirm these details (Rounds & Stutts, 2021). Through all the states of identification and the actual research, 283 samples were collected and further analyzed to produce reliable and valid conclusions.
The independent variable of this research was fitspiration (the domain that is not controlled by the authors), while the dependent were body satisfaction, Instagram use, and negative mood. In other words, the dependent variables were a direct result of the independent variable (fitspiration) (Rounds & Stutts, 2021). The manipulation of the independent variable (IV) was randomized throughout the research, meaning that the participants were randomly separated into groups and exposed to fitspiration, travel, and their mixed content.
The research part of this study is pretty complex, including many steps to generate valid findings. The initial phase was to identify the participants and make sure they were female, older than 18, and attending liberal arts programs. The next stage was to randomly select groups of women and analyze the influence of the content (fitspiration, travel, or mixed) on their body image, mood, and Instagram use. Therefore, the participants were not random, and the researchers defined the appropriate criteria they needed to fulfill to reach the objectives of this study. The assignment to groups was randomized to ensure that the impact of the randomly chosen content was authentically perceived without any bias and unreliability. The participants were asked to complete numerous questionnaires (all with their own focus and objective), which were held online.
To sum up, the results of the analysis were combined into the tables for a better understanding and more detailed further interpretation. The authors produced the results of fitspiration’s influence on body satisfaction, negative mood, Instagram use, and related variables. The measurements were then combined and compared for further interpretation of the statistics. It was found that fitspiration and mixed content lowered body satisfaction and resulted in negative mood, while travel photos had no such effect on the participants.
Reference
Rounds, E. G., & Stutts, L. A. (2021). The impact of fitspiration content on body satisfaction and negative mood: An experimental study. Psychology of Popular Media, 10(2), 267–274. Web.