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This study assessed how, through social learning theory’s four-stage process of observational learning (attention, retention, motoric reproduction, and reinforcement), daughters attend to, retain, and eventually replicate behaviors and attitudes they see their mothers engaging in. Results revealed significant relationships between daughters’ perceptions of mothers’ modeled behaviors and daughters’ perceptions of their mothers’ fat talk communication, their mothers’ weight loss behaviors, and their mothers’ thin ideal attitudes and their own body- and weight-related actions and beliefs (including body dissatisfaction, engagement in weight loss behaviors, and motivation to lose weight). Additionally, the findings indicated that mother’s engagement in weight loss behaviors (i.e., the motoric reproduction stage of observational learning) was the most significant predictor of daughters’ engagement in weight loss behaviors; and mother’s use of fat talk (i.e., the retention stage of observational learning) was the most significant predictor of daughters’ body dissatisfaction. Interestingly, the closer that daughters were to their mothers, the less frequently they believed their mother engaged in fat talk. Overall, this study highlighted the enduring dynamics of mother-daughter body-related communication and the value of social learning theory.
Advisor: | Young, Stacy L. |
Commitee: | Russell, Jessica, Abrams, Jessica |
School: | California State University, Long Beach |
Department: | Communication Studies |
School Location: | United States -- California |
Source: | MAI 81/1(E), Masters Abstracts International |
Source Type: | DISSERTATION |
Subjects: | Communication, Psychology, Gender studies, Individual & family studies |
Keywords: | Body dissatisfaction, Fat talk, Mother-daughter relationship, Observational learning, Social learning theory, Thin idealization |
Publication Number: | 13857894 |
ISBN: | 9781085560030 |