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Research Article Summary: Self-Concept in Social Psychology
The article I read was called ‘The Effects of Religious-Body Affirmations and Religious Commitment on Men’s Body Esteem’ by Mary L. Inman. The research article discusses how religion can serve as a conduit to create and preserve self-worth in young Western men. According to the article, there is increasing research that young Western men are discontent with their bodies, and in turn, this leads to lower self-worth and self-esteem. The discontent is derived from the media’s portrayal of how men are supposed to look, for example, with muscular arms and a lean body. This body standard has become internalized and affects the way these young men act and behave. The main focus of this article is how every person’s self-concept affects their behavior, and how changing their self-concept can affect any number of aspects of their lives. Someone’s self-concept is ‘their overall set of beliefs that they have about their attributes’ (Aronson, Wilson, & Sommers, 2019). ‘Self-affirmation theory proposes that people strive to maintain positive self-worth, especially when the self is threatened’ (Iman, 2014). This theory directly coincides with the situation that young Western men find themselves in. Many of them have to feel that if their self-worth is tied to something such as their body type, the only way to feel worthy is to display the body type that is projected by the media as the only allowable type—muscular and lean. To fix this problem, Inman proposes a research study that attempts to see if self-esteem can be protected by allowing these young men to find their self-worth within themselves through the use of religion. She used the principles of self-affirmation, self-acceptance, self-concept, and self-internalization to conduct her study. Inman references past research studies to strengthen her reasoning for conducting her study. For example, Bergstrom’s study ‘assessed women’s importance of nonappearance related dimensions of self-worth (ex. family, work) and assessed weight concern, both before and after women viewed models or control ads.’ The study found that overweight women had an increased importance on the nonappearance dimensions of self-worth and increased concern for their weight (Inman, 2014). This makes sense that the group most targeted by the ads and media is the group that is most affected, and whose behavior is likely to change, including their determination of self-worth. The researcher added this to demonstrate why she believes there is a need to conduct her study and how she intends to go about finding an answer to what she perceives as a major problem in the Western world today. In this research paper, the main question that Inman is trying to answer is whether using religion instead of societal pressure to affirm self-worth would work and how it would work. She used descriptive statistics and the survey method to study this important topic. Inman concluded her research article with her results, as well as the implications and limitations of her study.
In the study, the researcher examines the importance of one’s self-concept and how it can affect daily life by creating disorders and diseases through dissatisfaction and low self-esteem. She investigated the factors that affect body dissatisfaction and stated that finding these factors is essential to understanding various aspects of men’s mental health. Inman tested five different hypotheses to answer her question. They include testing the effects of religious statements, the effects of religious commitment, statement and commitment interactions, the moderation effect, and, lastly, the mediation role of emotions. The participants of the study were 56 men from an introductory course at a private Christian university and they were incentivized by allowing the two sessions as a way to earn class credit. Most of the men in the study (95%) reported some denomination of Christianity and the rest reported having no religion or did not answer. The men answered basic demographic questions and were randomly assigned to groups in each part of the study. First, the men responded to online questions and they were matched based on their reported body esteem and the importance of religion in their life. Then, they read 15 statements and were asked to summarize the statements to reinforce what they had read. The emotions they had regarding the statements were recorded. Finally, they were shown pictures of models and athletes and they filled out body esteem scales. The statements were taken from Boyatzis et al. (2007). The researchers wrote religious body-affirming statements, consisting of three varieties: the religious-body condition, the positive/spiritual body condition, and the control condition. Next, Inman and her team measured religious commitment using Worthington et al.’s (2003) religious commitment scale to assess the importance and general attitudes toward religion. To measure the participant’s body esteem, they were given Mendelson et al.’s body esteem scale to measure their feelings about their appearance.
In the study, ‘fifty-six percent of the participants said that religion was very or extremely important’ (Inman, 2014). This was similar to the college’s average, however lower than the women at the college and the reported Christians at the college. Men who read the religious body-affirming statements did not see increases in appearance esteem, contrary to what Inman hypothesized. While reading these statements did not increase body esteem, the participants reported feeling loved—thus, supporting Boyatzis et al.’s findings. However, men who were religiously committed scored higher in appearance esteem and weight esteem, matching what Inman predicted. A decrease was seen in weight esteem in participants who had a low religious commitment as BMI increased; an increase was seen in weight esteem in participants who had a high religious commitment as BMI increased. According to Inman (2014), ‘the results show that religious commitment more strongly predicted men’s body esteem than did reading religious statements.’ Those who believed in what the statements stood for, were committed to their religion, and had a higher BMI tended to have the highest body esteem.
Inman (Inman) explicitly states that ‘feelings of transcendence and love created from religious commitment were important potential buffers for heavy religious men who faced media pressures of the body ideal.’ Her research demonstrates men’s body image can be influenced by a factor other than the media’s portrayal of the ‘correct’ body type. This research, if replicated, allows us to potentially create programs to increase self-esteem and a better, stronger, healthier self-concept. Lastly, Inman recognizes and puts forth limitations she feels hinder or slightly damper her study.
This research article increased my understanding of not just the term self-concept, but also of the self-affirmation theory and the two major human motives: accuracy and self-esteem. I found it interesting that essentially religiosity and BMI can predict body esteem and the importance of nonappearance-based aspects of self-worth. The methods within the article enhanced my knowledge of the research methods chapter and enabled me to see how a researcher can carry out multiple aspects to answer multiple hypotheses regarding one goal. Essentially, trying to weed out as many errors and trying to reach every circumstance within the experiment. The idea of self-concept was also fascinating to learn more about. I am not necessarily the most religious person, and it was fascinating to see how others roughly similar to me fit within the study. It was also intriguing to me that if religion can potentially be used to increase self-worth among those that look different from the media’s portrayal of the ‘perfect’ male body, then there may be other factors that can as well.
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