Discussion and Conclusion
The purpose of this study was to examine the media ’ s potential negative influence on appearance importance , by taking a somewhat different approach from previous research . My goal was to look at these effects in emerging adults as opposed to adolescents or adults . In particular , this study used insights from social comparison theory , cultivation theory , and looked at the relationship between an individual ’ s favorite TV character and the importance the viewer attributed to his or her appearance . As predicted , comparing the self with one ’ s favorite character seems to be a more valuable explanation for the relationship between media use and appearance importance , than the cultivation hypothesis put forward . It was also found that character identification was a more successful predictor of partner ’ s appearance importance and cosmetic procedural likelihood .
The effect of gender in the partner appearance importance model was not significant , when controlling for media variables , which was somewhat surprising based on previous research . Gender was significant in the partner appearance importance and procedural likelihood models , such that males are more concerned with partner ’ s appearance and females are more likely to want to get cosmetic procedures . Both of these make sense intuitively , especially as
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