An Examination of Social Media and the Tripartite Influence Model of Body Image Disturbance

The Tripartite Influence Model of body image disturbance demonstrates that parents, peers, and media play a role in the development of body image dissatisfaction and eating disorder psychopathology. Research suggests that parents, peers, and media play direct roles on the development of body dissatisfaction and eating disorder psychopathology in females as well as indirect roles through mediated relationships with appearance comparisons and thin ideal internalization. A form of media gaining recent attention is social media. Although there is limited research on social media and body image, studies suggest that use of social media is related to body dissatisfaction and eating disorder psychopathology. The current study examined the relationship between social media use, body image dissatisfaction, and eating disorder psychopathology using the conceptual framework of the Tripartite Influence Model. Participants were 746 undergraduate females of ages 18-30 at three Southern California universities and one university in North Dakota. Results indicated that there was a small, positive relationship between social media use and body dissatisfaction. Appearance comparison negatively moderated the relationship between social media use and body dissatisfaction. There was no relationship found between social media use and eating disorder psychopathology. These findings highlight the need to further examine the relationships found between social media use and body dissatisfaction. The impact of social media use on specific cognitive processes, such as appearance comparisons and maladaptive thoughts, can be targeted in future interventions to address body image and eating disorder psychopathology