Young women's dialectical responses to fitspiration and thinspiration: A qualitative study.

With the popularity of image-based social media platforms like Instagram, researchers have begun to study relationships between social media and body image. Much of this research has used quantitative research methods, which cannot capture the rich, inner experiences of individuals. Given the dearth of qualitative research on what young women internally experience when viewing "Thinspiration" or "Fitspiration," this study used the consensual qualitative research (CQR) method, with the aim of capturing in their own words what young women feel and think in response to viewing fitspiration and thinspiration. Twelve young women viewed Fitspiration and Thinspiration profiles and were interviewed about these and similar everyday experiences. The CQR analytic team identified 10 general, 18 typical, and 11 variant domains (i.e., topic areas). An example general domain was "body image," under which the category "body dissatisfaction," fell; by viewing Thinspiration or Fitspiration, these young women were reminded how they are dissatisfied with how they see their own body or were prompted to believe others are reminded of this when viewing such content. An example typical domain was "diet/disordered eating"; several participants associated Thinspiration or Fitspiration with diet or disordered eating. From five of the 10 general domains emerged what we call an emergent dialectical theory of social media and body image. When viewing Thinspiration or Fitspiration, young women often seemed to feel or think two seemingly opposite things simultaneously within the topic areas of attainability, emotional reactions, social comparison, body image, and health.

Sexual communal motivation in couples coping with low sexual interest/arousal: Associations with sexual well-being and sexual goals.

Women coping with female sexual interest/arousal disorder (FSIAD) report lower sexual and relationship satisfaction compared to healthy controls. In community samples, high sexual communal strength (i.e., the motivation to meet a partner's sexual needs) is associated with higher sexual desire and satisfaction, but high unmitigated sexual communion (i.e., the prioritization of a partner's needs to the exclusion of one's own needs) is associated with lower sexual satisfaction. People higher in sexual communal strength report engaging in sex for approach goals (i.e., to enhance intimacy in their relationship), but not for avoidance goals (i.e., to avert conflict or a partner's disappointment) and this is one reason why they report greater sexual desire. In the current sample of 97 women diagnosed with FSIAD and their partners we investigated the association between sexual communal strength and unmitigated sexual communion and sexual well-being (i.e., sexual desire, sexual satisfaction and sexual distress) and sexual goals (i.e., approach and avoidance goals). Women who reported higher sexual communal strength were more likely to pursue sex for approach goals and their partner reported greater sexual satisfaction. When partners reported higher sexual communal strength, they reported higher sexual desire, but when they reported higher unmitigated sexual communion, they reported higher sexual distress. Additional associations emerged for couples who engage in sex more (compared to less) frequently. Our findings demonstrate that being motivated to meet a partner's sexual needs is associated with greater sexual well-being for couples coping with FSIAD, but when this motivation involves neglecting one's own needs, people do not report greater sexual well-being and instead, partners report higher sexual distress.

The effects of active social media engagement with peers on body image in young women.

This experimental study examined the effects of engaging on social media with attractive female peers on young adult women's body image. Participants were 118 female undergraduate students randomly assigned to one of two experimental conditions. Participants first completed a visual analogue scale measure of state body image and then either browsed and left a comment on the social media site of an attractive female peer (n = 56) or did the same with a family member (n = 62) and then completed a post-manipulation visual analogue scale measure of state body image. A 2 × 2 mixed analysis of variance showed a significant interaction between condition and time. Follow-up t-tests revealed that young adult women who engaged with an attractive peer on social media subsequently experienced an increase in negative body image (dependence-corrected d = 0.13), whereas those who engaged with a family member did not (dependence-corrected d = 0.02). The findings suggest that upward appearance comparisons on social media may promote increased body image concerns in young adult women.