Reflections in the Mirror: The Utilization of the Mirror Interview to Explore Attachment Patterns and Body Representations in Adult Men
Anthony Boiardo (The New School) & Miriam Steele, PhD (The New School)
Anthony Boiardo (The New School) & Miriam Steele, PhD (The New School)
Thank you for sharing your research and presenting at NEPA!
I was hoping you could summarize what you’ve found so far. How does it tie in with past research? Also does your work tie into the work of Fredrickson and colleagues (1998) and Hebl and colleagues (2004)?
Fredrickson, B. L., Roberts, T. A., Noll, S. M., Quinn, D. M., & Twenge, J. M. (1998). That swimsuit becomes you: sex differences in self-objectification, restrained eating, and math performance. Journal of personality and social psychology, 75(1), 269.
Hebl, M. R., King, E. B., & Lin, J. (2004). The swimsuit becomes us all: Ethnicity, gender, and vulnerability to self-objectification. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 30(10), 1322-1331.
Hi there, preliminary data analysis demonstrates that sexual minority men demonstrate greater self-objectification in the Mirror Interview than heterosexual men. In addition, men who had secure attachment to caregivers demonstrated lower levels of self-objectification than heterosexual men. Additionally, in the Mirror Interview, homosexual men demonstrated greater body dissatisfaction and more preoccupation with cultural standards of beauty.
Another interesting theme that has come up in the mirror interview is with respect to the ways in which parents contribute to the development of body representation in gay men. For gay men who had father’s that were more critical of their gender non-conformity, those men reported a greater tendency towards a desire to be more muscular and greater concern with appearing more masculine. This, of course, is from preliminary analysis. Mirror Interviews conducted with gay men were more likely to endorse a desire for muscularity and to achieve the ideal male body (often characterized by both muscularity and thinness).
I would be happy to discuss this more with you via email: my email is boiaa745@newschool.edu.
Thanks so much for this summary it is very helpful!