The Persuasiveness of Male Models in Advertisements and Their Effect on Body Image as Moderated by Self-Monitoring Level

The current study assessed whether males’ body dissatisfaction and perceptions of advertisements’ persuasiveness are impacted by different model types they see in advertisements and whether such effects interact with their self-monitoring levels. Participants were males recruited via Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) (N = 147). The self-monitoring level of the participants was measured in the beginning of the experiment, and participants were categorized into either high or low self-monitors. Appearance-related self-esteem was also assessed as it may be a potential confounding variable. Participants were then randomly assigned to one of the four conditions: product only advertisements with no models (control; n = 39), average-large male model advertisements (n =34), muscular male model advertisements (n = 45), or thin male model advertisements (n = 29). Participants rated the persuasiveness for each advertisement they viewed, and their body dissatisfaction scores were obtained after the presentation of the advertisements. It was hypothesized that self-monitoring level would moderate the effects of advertisement type on advertising persuasiveness and body dissatisfaction. However, no significant interactions between advertisement type and self-monitoring level were found for persuasiveness and body dissatisfaction, suggesting that the impact of advertisement type did not differ between high and low self-monitors. Implications of this study and suggestions for future research are discussed in detail