The Barbie Effect

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The Barbie Effect |

Samantha Stein |

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Southeastern Oklahoma State University |

10/15/2013 |

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The Barbie Effect

As we proceed through our everyday lives most of us don’t think about how big of an effect seemingly minuscule items can have on our psyche. Marketing and promotions layer our thoughts and beliefs on appearances and esteem starting from an early age. When we go to the store to buy a present for a child we never imagine that it may affect the way they feel about their appearance. To help identify cause and effect relationships, the research study “Does Barbie Make Girls Want to Be Thin? The Effects of Experimental Exposure to Images of Dolls on the Body Image of 5- to 8-Year-Old Girls,” evaluated the effects the beloved Barbie doll has on the esteem of young girls, by asking three main questions: Would images of Barbie have a direct impact on young girls’ feelings of body dissatisfaction? Would a doll with more lifelike body figure have the same negative effect? Does the impact of the images have different affects to girls of different ages (Dittmar, Halliwell, & Ive, 2006, p. 287)? They predicted that the images of Barbie would have a greater negative effect on girls’ self-esteem and body dissatisfaction compared to the images of a more realistic doll figure or neutral images. They correspondingly hypothesized that the older girls may not show the same direct negative effects to the images.

Method

To examine this relationship they gathered 162 predominantly white middle class young girls ranging from 5 to 8 years of age from six different primary schools in Southern England. The girls were then divided into separate age groups, in group one there were 57 girls ranging from 5 ½ to 6 ½, in group two there were 49 girls ranging from 6 ½ to 7 ½, and in group three there were 56 girls ranging from 7 ½ to 8 ½. In group one 17 of the girls was assigned to the Barbie doll condition, 20 girls were assigned to the Emme doll...