The Effects of Weight and Achievement Messages on the Self-Esteem of Women

Abstract

We examined whether priming achievement causes lower self-esteem and more negative mood in women who believe they are overweight and whether it does so by increasing women's dissatisfaction with their bodies or with their performance. Thirty-five self-perceived overweight women and 43 self-perceived normal weight women participated in the experiment. Half of the women read a message stressing the importance of achievement pursuits, and the other half read a message stressing the importance of nonachievement pursuits. All women then completed a measure of global self-esteem, read a message about the negative effects of being overweight, and completed several dependent measures. Controlling for initial self-esteem, overweight women who read the achievement prime had lower mood and global self-esteem and lower performance self-esteem but not lower appearance self-esteem or greater body dissatisfaction when compared to the overweight women who read the nonachievement prime and the normal weight women regardless of prime type.