Social Psychology Research

Abstract Introduction: Aim of this research was to determine the mediating role of internalization of societal ideals in the relationship between sociocultural attitudes and body appearance dissatisfaction.
Method: Based on a correlation design, 270 client (women) aged 20- 40 years to beauty centers of Tehran were selected with convenience sampling and complete Multidimensional Body-Self Relations (Cash,1997) and Sociocultural Attitudes Towards Appearance -3 (Thompson et al, 2000) questionnaires. In order to analyze data, path analysis used.
Results: The Findings indicated that the model has an acceptable fit between the variables .Direct effect from importance (ß=0/122, p < 0/05) and pressure (ß=0/141, p < 0/05) sub scales from sociocultural attitudes, and direct effect from general internalization (ß=0/276, p < 0/001) from internalization of societal ideals have negatively significant association with body appearance dissatisfaction. Direct effect from athlete internalization (ß=0/222, p < 0/001) has a positively significant association with body appearance dissatisfaction. This findings showed that sociocultural attitudes through the internalization of societal ideals has a significant indirect effect on body appearance dissatisfaction. Also, Predictive variables can be explained 17% of the variance of body appearance dissatisfaction.
Conclusion: According to the findings of this research, the factors regarding internalization of societal ideals could be beneficial in prevention of body appearance dissatisfaction and related problems.