Barbie Jennifer Fleitas Noone-Kirkpatrick Developmental

¶ … Barbie

Jennifer Fleitas

Noone-Kirkpatrick

Developmental Psychology

Spring 2007, Online Section

Critical Review of the effect of Barbie on girls age 5 to 8

The purpose of this paper is to critically review research published by Dittmar, Halliwell, and Ive (2006) on the effects Barbie has on the body image of five- to eight-year-old girls. This paper will summarize key findings, identify strengths and weaknesses of the research, assesses the quality of the research and suggests areas for additional future research.

Research subjects included 162 girls, from age five to age eight, attending U.K. National Curriculum schools. The researchers divided these girls into thee different groups, one group who viewed images of Barbie, one group who saw images of Emme (a size 16 doll) and a control group who saw images with no dolls. The Barbie and Emme groups reviewed three types of picture books containing six different images of the dolls performing activities such as shopping and getting ready for a party. After the stories were finished, the girls were ask to indicate using "smiley faces" how much they agreed with statements such as "I'm pretty happy about the way I look," "Children my own age like my looks" and "I really like what I weigh." These questions were intended to measure body esteem. I addition, the researchers used the Child Figure Rating Scale to attempt to measure body shape dissatisfaction. The girls were asked to select the body shape that most resembled their own body, the body shape they wished to look like, and the adult body shape they wanted to look like when they grew up.

The results of the study were different for different ages, 5 1/2-6 1/2, 6 1/2 -7 1/2 and 7 1/2 -8 1/2, revealing differences in the way girls though they looked and the way they wanted to look after seeing certain images. For example, the youngest group, ages 5-1/2 to 6 1/2, shown the Barbie picture books wished they were thinner and disliked their bodies more than girls of the same age who viewed other images. These results were even more pronounced for girls 6 1/2 to 7 1/2. Further, this age group desired more extreme thinness as adults than girls the same age who viewed images other than Barbie and the girls 5 1/2-6 1/2 who had also viewed Barbie pictures. The 7 1/2-8 1/2 age group were affected by the Emme images and not the Barbie images. The girls who viewed Emme wanted a thinner body shape for the adult figure than girls viewing other images.

After reviewing results, the researchers concluded that "exposure to Barbie dolls causes an increase in girl's body dissatisfaction and that this negative effect is specific to Barbie and not observed after exposure to dolls with a body size that resembles the average U.S. woman." (288).

In response to this negative impact of Barbie not being found in the 7 1/2 to 8-1/2-year-old girls, the researchers admit that the finding was unanticipated and assert that, "For these older girls, if they have already internalized the thinness ideal, then the depiction of a full body could represent a possible, but feared, future self." (290)

The study is weak in several areas. The research sample is small, predominately white and middle class and comes from the same geographic region, causing one to wonder how much socio-economic factors play a role in the results of this study. it's not clear if the use of picture books rather than just dolls introduced bias into the study. Clearly, the researchers tried to emulate similar scenes for Barbie and Emme, but there are differences such as there as the use of an image of Barbie in the supermarket and Emme in a dress. The biggest flaw in the study is the interpretation of the results, particularly Emme, not Barbie, causing 7 1/2 to 8-1/2-year-old girls wanting to be thinner. Rather than admitting that this finding disputes that Barbie is to blame for negative effects on the body image, the researchers subjectively conclude that earlier exposure to Barbie must have caused future fears.

Nevertheless, this is an important study because there are few other experimental exposure studies that assess the impact of the sociocultural thinness ideal on very young girls.

The study began with well formed questions and finding the answers was supported with three different age groups and two different images, Barbie and Emme. The study suitably used a control group and tried to eliminate biases in the picture books. Response formats, "smiley faces" and coloring in figures, were age appropriate and reduced possible interpretation issues.