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A Cross-Cultural Investigation of Men’s Judgments of Female Body Weight in Britain and Indonesia
Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology XX(X) 1–6 © The Author(s) 2010 Reprints and permission: sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/0022022110383319 jccp.sagepub.com
Viren Swami1, Grant Henderson2, Deborah Custance2, and Martin J.Tovée3
Abstract Forty-seven men in Bali, Lombok, and Britain, respectively, were asked to rate a series of female images varying in body size for attractiveness. Between-group analyses indicated that participants in Lombok rated a heavier female figure as attractive compared with participants in Bali and Britain. In addition, participants in Bali and Lombok rated a wider range of figures as attractive compared with Britons. Results are discussed in relation to the globalization of the thin ideal. Keywords ideal body size, physical attractiveness, body weight, cross-cultural, thin ideal Body size plays an important role in men’s judgments of women’s physical attractiveness, health, and fertility, and such judgments are known to vary cross-culturally (for a review, see Swami, 2007). Specifically, a growing body of research suggests a reliable association between body size perceptions and socioeconomic status (SES), with the ideal being heavier in contexts of low, compared with high, SES (e.g., Swami & Tovée, 2005, 2007). Most researchers suggest that heavier body weights will be perceived as attractive in contexts experiencing resource scarcity (Anderson, Crawford, Nadeau, & Lindberg, 1992). However, this hypothesis does not deny a role for sociocultural influences and, as a number of authors have argued, an increasingly globalized world has resulted in a wider promulgation of the thin ideal (e.g., Swami et al., in press), mainly as a result of the influence of Western media. In the present study, we examined men’s perceptions of female body weight in Britain and two island sites in Indonesia, namely Bali and Lombok. Although both Bali and Lombok are part of Nusa Tenggara (Lesser Sunda Islands), the two islands differ markedly in terms of SES, exposure to Western media, and geopolitics. Specifically, Bali is the largest tourist destination in Indonesia, the majority of its population practice Balinese Hinduism, and its provincial capital, Denpasar, is a relatively developed city with most modern amenities (including satellite 1
Department of Psychology, University of Westminster, London, United Kingdom Department of Psychology, Goldsmiths, University of London, London, United Kingdom 3 School of Psychology, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom 2
Corresponding Author: Viren Swami, Department of Psychology, University of Westminster, 309 Regent Street, London W1B 2UW, UK. Email:
[email protected]
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Table 1. Means, Standard Deviations, and Interitem Correlations Between Ratings of the Most Attractive Figure, the Attractiveness Range (AR), Exposure to Western Media, Participant Age, BMI, Religiosity, and Exposure to Tourists (Bali and Lombok Participants Only) Most Attractive Attractiveness Exposure Age BMI Exposure Figure Range to Media (Years) (kg/m2) Religiosity to Tourists
Site Britain
M SD Bali
Most attractive figure Attractive range Exposure to media Age BMI Most attractive figure Attractive range Exposure to media Age BMI Religiosity
M SD Lombok Most attractive figure Attractiveness range Exposure to media Age BMI Religiosity M SD
–.13
–.30* .06
.10 .08 –.05
.07 .09 –.10 .14
3.66 0.70
2.98 1.79 .11
6.28 0.90 –.32* –.31*
24.55 5.50 –.10 –.14 .04
22.83 2.69 –.01 .14 .04 .30*
3.40 0.90
3.91 1.89 .22
4.19 0.99 –.55** –.35*
27.49 21.78 6.25 3.62 .33* .13 .23 .34* –.43** –.24 .28
4.25 1.62 –.29* .07 .37* –.07 .02
5.74 1.26
3.60 0.97
1.95 1.16
36.98 9.65
5.13 1.37
23.55 2.54
–.26 –.26 .01 .04 .14 1.77 1.36 –.01 –.13 .12 .17 .05
— — — — — — — –.30* –.29* –.10 .07 .12 .11 1.62 1.21 –.32* .30* –.51** .35* .16 –.33* 4.09 1.30
*p < .05. **p < .001.
television and the Internet). In contrast, Lombok is economically depressed with little exposure to Western media or tourists, and the majority of its population adheres to Islam. Participants from Bali, Lombok, and Britain were asked to complete a validated measure for the assessment of body size ideals (the Photographic Figure Rating Scale, or PFRS; Swami, Salem, Furnham, & Tovée, 2008) and a measure of exposure to Western media. Based on the review above, we expected that men in the relatively low SES context of Lombok would rate heavier female figures as more attractive than their relatively high SES counterparts in Bali and Britain. In addition, we expected a preference for a thinner figure in each of the three research sites would be positively correlated with exposure to Western media.
Method Participants The participants comprised 141 men: 47 men each from Britain, Bali, and Lombok (age and body mass index, or BMI, Ms and SDs are reported in Table 1). Bali. Participants in Bali were recruited from the beach resort of Kuta, the centre of an extensive tourist-oriented urban development that merges into Denpasar, the provincial capital and largest city in Bali. All participants were employed in the tourist industry (e.g., hotel workers, caterers) and had regular exposure to tourists and Western media. The majority of these participants were Balinese Hindus (44.7%), with smaller groups of Muslims (38.3%), Christians (14.9%), and other religious affiliations (2.1%). In terms of highest educational qualifications, 4.3% had completed primary school, 59.6% had completed secondary school, and 36.2% had a tertiary degree.
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Lombok. Participants in Lombok were recruited from the north and south beaches of the island. Participants from the north beaches were generally laborers employed in the building industry, whereas those from the south were typically engaged in small-hold farming. These beaches are relatively isolated, with little or no contact with tourists and little exposure to Western forms of media. All participants practiced either Islam (87.2%) or Hinduism (12.8%), and the majority had only completed primary school (91.5%; secondary school = 8.5%). Britain. Participants in this sample were recruited from the general population in central London, the largest city and capital of Britain. All 47 men in this sample were of European Caucasian descent, and the majority were of no religious affiliation (34.0%), while others were Christians (17.0%), unsure of their religious affiliation (14.9%), or of other religions (34.1%). In terms of education, 42.6% had completed secondary schooling and 57.4% had a tertiary degree.
Measures PFRS. The PFRS (Swami, Salem et al., 2008) consists of 10 photographic images of real women in front-view and who vary in body size from emaciated to obese (for details, see Swami, Salem et al., 2008). In the present study, participants were asked to identify (a) the figure they considered most physically attractive, (b) the largest figure they considered physically attractive, and (c) the smallest figure they considered physically attractive. The latter two ratings were used to calculate an “attractiveness range”—namely, the smallest figure that participants found attractive subtracted from the largest figure (for details, see Swami, Buchanan, Furnham, & Tovée, 2008). Responses were made on a 10-point scale, with 1 representing the woman with the lowest BMI and 10 the woman with the highest BMI. Previous work has shown that the PFRS has high construct validity and test-retest reliability (Swami, Salem et al., 2008). Media exposure. Participants rated their lifetime exposure to Western media across four items: television, movies, magazines, and music (1 = not at all, 7 = very much). Following Swami et al. (in press), a composite Western media exposure score was computed by taking the mean of all four items (Cronbach’s α = .88). Demographics. Participants in all three research sites were asked to provide their age, sex, religion, highest educational qualification, marital status, weight, and height. The latter two items were used to calculate participants’ BMI (kg/m2). Participants also rated their religiosity on a 7-point scale (1 = not at all religious, 7 = very religious). In addition, we asked participants in Bali and Lombok only to rate how often they met Western tourists on a 5-point scale (1 = every day, 5 = less than once a month).
Procedure All participants were recruited opportunistically by the second author. For participants in Bali and Lombok, an independent translator initially prepared a translation from English into Indonesian, which was subsequently back-translated (after Breslin, 1970) into English by a second translator. In addition, a professional translator and tour guide accompanied the experimenter in order to facilitate translation into local dialects or to answer any questions. For British participants, the questionnaire was presented in English. All participants took part on a voluntary basis without any remuneration. Once they had provided informed consent, participants completed the questionnaire anonymously. All data were treated confidentially and participants were verbally debriefed after the experiment.
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Results Means and standard deviations for all variables are reported in Table 1. There was a significant difference in the mean age, F(2, 138) = 36.60, p < .001, ηp2 = .35, and mean BMI of participants in the three groups, F(2, 138) = 4.08, p = .02, ηp2 = .06. For this reason, these variables were included as covariates in all subsequent analyses. There was also a significant difference in exposure to Western media between the three groups, F(2, 138) = 210.52, p < .001, ηp2 = .75, with British participants reporting significantly more exposure to Western media than their Balinese and Lombok counterparts and Balinese participants reporting significantly more Western media exposure than participants in Lombok (post hoc Tukey tests, all ps < .001).
Most Attractive Body Size We conducted a one-way analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) with the figure that participants rated as the most attractive as the dependent variable, research site as the independent variable, and participant age and BMI as covariates. The results showed a significant between-group difference, F(2, 136) = 44.81, p < .001, ηp2 = .40. Tests of simple effects showed that British participants rated a significantly thinner figure as their ideal compared with participants in Lombok, t(92) = 9.92, p < .001, d = 2.04, but not in Bali, t(92) = 1.53, p = .13, d = .32. In addition, participants in Bali rated a significantly thinner figure as their ideal compared with participants in Lombok, t(92) = 10.36, p < .001, d = 2.14. There was no significant effect of covariate age, F(1, 136) = 4.00, p = .06, ηp2 = .02, or covariate BMI, F(1, 136) = 0.02, p = .88, ηp2 ≤ .01.
Attractiveness Range We repeated the above ANCOVA with the attractiveness range as the dependent variable. There was a significant difference between the three research sites, F(2, 136) = 4.60, p = .01, ηp2 = .06. Tests of simple effects showed that British participants had a significantly lower attractiveness range than participants in both Bali, t(92) = 2.47, p = .02, d = .51, and Lombok, t(92) = 2.08, p = .04, d = .43. The attractiveness range of participants in Bali and Lombok were not significantly different from each other, t(92) = 1.03, p = .31, d = .21. There was no significant effect of covariate age, F(1, 136) = 0.01, p = .97, ηp2 ≤ .01, or covariate BMI, F(1, 136) = 3.32, p = .07, ηp2 = .02.
Correlations and Multiple Regressions Table 1 reports the interitem correlations between all variables. As can be seen, the figure rated as most attractive by British participants was significantly correlated with exposure to Western media alone, whereas the attractiveness range was not significantly correlated with any other items. For this reason, no further analyses were conducted for British participants. For participants in Bali, the figure rated as the most attractive and the attractiveness range were both significantly correlated with exposure to Western media and exposure to tourists. Finally, the figure rated as most attractive by Lombokian participants was significantly correlated with exposure to Western media, participant age, exposure to tourists, and religiosity, whereas the attractiveness range was significantly correlated with exposure to Western media, participant BMI, and exposure to tourists. For participants in Bali and Lombok, we used multivariate linear regressions to examine predictors (among exposure to Western media, participant age, BMI, religiosity, and exposure to tourists) of both the figure rated as most attractive and the attractiveness range. For Balinese participants, the regressions for both the figure rated as most attractive, F(5, 46) = 0.96, p = .45, R2 = .11, and the attractiveness range, F(5, 46) = 0.93, p = .47, R2 = .10, did not return significant results. For participants in Lombok, on the other hand, the regression with the figure rated as the
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most attractive returned a significant result, F(5, 46) = 4.98, p = .005, R2 = .43, with exposure to Western media emerging as the only significant predictor (st. β = –.45, t = –2.74, p = .009). For the attractiveness range, the regression was also significant, F(5, 46) = 2.53, p = .04, R2 = .23, with exposure to Western media again emerging as the only significant predictor (st. β = –.31, t = –1.80, p = .04).
Discussion Our results corroborate previous work showing a reliable association between SES and body size judgments (e.g., Swami & Tovée, 2005, 2007). Although we only took a basic measure of SES, it was noticeable that participants in Lombok rated a significantly heavier female body as being maximally attractive compared with their counterparts in Bali and Britain. Moreover, our results also showed that participants in Bali and Lombok were more likely to perceive a wider range of female body weights as attractive compared with men in Britain. As noted above, the association between body size judgments and SES likely reflects the availability of resources in a given society, such that heavier body weights will be perceived as more attractive during long-term or periodic resource scarcity. However, this explanation does not deny a role for sociocultural factors, and the present results also suggests that exposure to Western media plays a role in explaining judgments of ideal body size, although the strength of this association appeared to vary with research site. Specifically, the relationship between exposure to Western media and a preference for a thinner female body was strongest in Lombok and weakest in Britain. This may be a ceiling effect due to the media saturation of people’s lives in Britain; alternatively, in Britain, the influence of the media may be moderated or attenuated by other related factors, such as peer and family influences. By contrast, in media-poor societies, the effects of Western media may be more pronounced, possibly because markers of the thin ideal are perceived as novel or persuasive. In addition, it was noteworthy that, for the two Indonesian samples, exposure to tourists was associated with a preference for a thinner figure. It may be argued that tourists (particularly Western tourists, who form the majority of visitors to Lombok and Bali) themselves espouse a thin ideal or that the influx of tourists is correlated with increasing SES. Finally, it is also worth highlighting the significant and negative correlation between ideal body weight judgments and religiosity among the Lombok participants. It might be speculated that in Muslim-majority Lombok, thinness is associated with asceticism and religious adherents may derive self-worth from endorsing the thin ideal. Clearly, however, this is an avenue of research deserving of greater attention, particularly given the limited focus on religiosity and weight perception. In terms of limitations, it should be pointed out that our sample of participants was recruited opportunistically and may not be representative of their respective populations. In addition, while we have explained our results in the most parsimonious manner, it is possible that confounding variables affected our results. This includes between-group differences in age and BMI (which we controlled for in our analyses), as well as religion and education (which may covary with SES). These limitations notwithstanding, our results may have important implications for societies experiencing rapid socioeconomic development and globalization. Specifically, with increasing SES and the proliferation of Western media, such societies can expect to witness a propagation of the thin ideal and a denigration of being overweight. Declaration of Conflicting Interests [AQ: 1] The authors declared that they had no conflicts of interests with respect to their authorship or the
publication of this article.
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Financial Disclosure/Funding [AQ: 2] The authors declared that they received no financial support for their research and/or authorship
of this article.
Acknowledgments We are grateful for the assistance of Pika Taufik Rusdi and Eko Fredyansah during the data collection for this study.
References Anderson, J. L., Crawford, C. E., Nadeau, J., & Lindberg, T. (1992). Was the Duchess of Windsor right? A cross-cultural view of the socio-biology of ideals of female body shape. Ethology and Sociobiology, 13, 197-227. Breslin, R. W. (1970). Back-translation for cross-cultural research. Cross Cultural Psychology, 1, 185-216. Marlowe, F., & Wetsman, A. (2001).[AQ: 3] Preferred waist-to-hip ratio and ecology. Personality and Individual Differences, 30, 481-489. Swami, V. (2007). The missing arms of Vénus de Milo: Reflections on the science of physical attractiveness. Brighton, UK: Book Guild. Swami, V., Buchanan, T., Furnham, A., & Tovée, M. J. (2008b). Five-factor personality correlates of perceptions of women’s body sizes. Personality and Individual Differences, 45, 697-699. Swami, V., Frederick, D. A., Aavik, T., Alcalay, L., Allik, J., Anderson, D., et al. (in press). Body weight ideals and body dissatisfaction in 26 countries across 10 world regions: Results of the International Body Project I. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. Swami, V., Salem, N., Furnham, A., & Tovée, M. J. (2008a). Initial examination of the validity and reliability of the female Photographic Figure Rating Scale for body image assessment. Personality and Individual Differences, 44, 1752-1761. Swami, V., & Tovée, M. J. (2005). Female physical attractiveness in Britain and Malaysia: A cross-cultural study. Body Image, 2, 115-128. Swami, V., & Tovée, M. J. (2007). Perceptions of female body weight and shape among indigenous and urban Europeans. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 48, 43-50. Tovée, M. J., Swami, V., Furnham, A., & Mangalparsad, R. (2006).[AQ: 4] Changing perceptions of attractiveness as observers are exposed to a different culture. Evolution and Human Behavior, 27, 443-456.
Bios Viren Swami is a reader in the Department of Psychology at the University of Westminster. His main research interests are interpersonal attraction and body image, particularly from cross-cultural perspectives. He is the author of The Missing Arms of Venus de Milo and (with Adrian Furnham) The Psychology of Physical Attraction. Grant Henderson is a research assistant at the Institute of Psychiatry, Kings College, London, and currently works on a study concerning physical and mental well-being in southeast London. He has a BSc in Psychology from Goldsmiths College, University of London. Deborah Custance is a lecturer in psychology in the Department of Psychology, Goldsmiths College. Her main area of research expertise is comparative social cognition, particularly in nonhuman primates and domestic dogs. Martin J. Tovée is a reader in VISUAL COGNITION at the Institute of Neuroscience, Newcastle University. His research explores human mate selection and the perception of physical attractiveness in an evolutionary psychology context. He is the author of An Introduction to the Visual System.
