The Social Learning Theory Of Adolescents

Her research reviewed 21 studies of the media’s affect on more than 6,000 girls, 10 years or older. The results showed that the more the girls were exposed to the fashion magazines, the more they struggled to have a positive body image. (L2)

Under society’s customs for decades, young women have found themselves immersed in the pressure and anticipation to have exemplary bodies. Nearly every young woman prefers to be slim, have a perfectly shaped body, that is beautified by applying pounds of makeup to their face but does not appear ridiculously overdone. Who’s responsible for these measures imposed on young women? When a young girl picks up the model on the cover of Vogue being called flawless, naturally it’s easy for her to then aspire to be a real-life imitation of the that model. These companies produce magazine covers shown with girls’ images daily. As if keeping the perfect body wasn’t hard enough, our culture also forces girls into the forever expanding world of composition, however, body image is a surging subject for young girls. Advertisements and pictures of lean female models are all over. Young women are measured and perplexed by their physical appearances with attire intended to raise their physical structures; social media, magazines, the society, marketing campaigns, advertisements, and the fashion gurus add to a strand of excellence.

The Social Learning Theory is a theory created by Bandura that often references children and young adults. Social Learning is observational learning, the basic idea behind it is that we can’t learn all we need to know on our own from experiences and personal observations alone. Some of the we learned is learned from indirect sources, this includes mass media. While mass media isn’t the only source of social learning it is one that has an extremely large effect on us all. According to McQuail (2010) “social learning theory holds that media can have direct effects on people and their influence does not have to be mediated by personal influences or social networks” (492). Social learning mainly happens when the source in which our attention

Furthermore, media surrounds teenage girls in today’s culture. It is impossible to escape the sight of media. The media’s constant idealistic beauty is ever present to a vast amount of self-conscious girls. This image of beauty causes girls to have low self-esteem (Clay, Vignoles, and Dittmar). Media defining this perfect body image causes many adolescent girls to feel dissatisfied with their bodies and become depressed. “Viewing ultra-thin or average-size models led to decreases in both body satisfaction and self-esteem in adolescent girls aged eleven to sixteen, with changes in self-esteem fully mediated by changes in body satisfaction” (Clay, Vignoles, and Dittmar).

Teenage girls are at an impressionable time in their lives. Mass Media is a key idea in one of the factors of socialization that become important to teenagers. Teenagers look to the media for a sense of entertainment. Whether it is movies, magazines, or even some aspects of social media, teenagers get a lot of influence from the media’s message. The problem with this is the media has a specific way of doing things and can be negative to a susceptible teenage girl. Media’s way of portraying a woman can be skewed and unrealistic way from what reality is. Teenage girls then have a desire for this look or way. In this essay the three ways I will describe as to why the media can negatively affect a teenage girls body image is by showing

In a recent survey done by the National institute on Media and the Family, fifth graders, ten year old boys and girls told researchers they were dissatisfied with their own bodies after watching a music video by Britney Spears or a clip from the TV show “Friends.”(4) If this isn’t shocking enough, the research group reported that at the age of thirteen, fifty-three percent of American girls are “unhappy with their bodies.” This grows to seventy-eight percent by the time the girls reach seventeen. Also, eating disorders are beginning to start at an alarming young age. Statistics show that girls are developing eating disorders at the age of six.(1) Young girls that are exposed to appearance focused television programs, and magazine shows feel that they need to look like the models that they see. Most of these girls are not even have fully developed bodies yet and are already trying to perfect themselves. One girl had even shared how one of her best friends discovered that her fifth grade cousin was bulimic. Girls at that age should not even be concerned with their bodies yet and eating disorders being developed is a harsh wake up call as to how young girls everywhere are being effected by the media each and everyday.

Social media creates an ideal body image in an adolescent’s mind that affects them in various ways. Having an ideal body image can lower self-esteem in some adolescents’ creating eating disorders, and this idea of getting plastic surgery as they get older. Social media is steadily increasing and has heavily influenced adolescent’s to be more aware of their body figure. As a result, many adolescent’s have developed low self-esteem due to the fact that social media continues promoting fit women and creating the idea that women need to be thin to be loved or accepted by society; this can cause harm to adolescent’s because they feel the need to fit in to society.

Under society’s norms for decades, young women have been put under the pressure and anticipation to have perfect bodies. That is, thin and curved, beautified by applying pounds of the makeup to their face but not appear ridiculously overdone. Who’s responsible for these standards imposed on young women? When a young girl picks up the model along the cover of Vogue being called flawless, it’s easy for her to then aspire to be a real-life imitation of the photocopy. These companies produce magazine covers shown with girls’ images daily. As if keeping the perfect body wasn’t hard enough our culture also forces girls into the forever expanding world of composition, however, body image is a pressing issue for young women. Advertisements and posters of skinny female models are all over. Young girls not only could be better but need to be more upright and feel driven to throw the perfect figure. Moreover, girls are evaluated and oppressed by their physical appearances. With supplements and apparel designed to enhance a facial expression; social media, magazines, and marketing campaigns and advertisements add to the burden of perfection. The fashion industry is a prime object of body image issues, as they believe clothes look better on tall and svelte women. Established on a survey participated by 13 to 17-year-old in the U.S., 90% “felt pressured by fashion and media industries to be skinny”, with more than 60% routinely compares themselves to models, while 46%

The culture of media has now taken a large affect on young girls and their body images. Young girls are feeling dissatisfied with their bodies because of the way society views women. The media tells us what to look like, what clothes to wear, make-up, what cars to drive, and sometimes what to eat. Media is changing people constantly through advertising and by showing us the looks and fashions of celebrities. Advertising has negative effects on the formation of oneself as seen through the nature of the promotion of its’ products. This effect is particularly prevalent among young adolescent girls. Young girls feel the need to join dietary plans or result to eating disorders Advertising in society results in negative effects on girls through self-image that leads to harmful consequences. The media is the biggest factor contributing to girls’ dissatisfaction with their bodies, causing eating disorders.

As a middle school student, I was oblivious to the unrealistic portrayals in the media, but I was not able to escape its harmful grasp. It seemed every girl at the school suffered with body image issues because their perception of beauty is what they had been taught by society. Anorexia and bulimia were far too common, while self-esteem and confidence were very hard to find. Not only were the girls trying to become “beautiful,” they were also trying to act older than they were. Starting at the extreme, drugs, alcohol, and sex seemed normal; far less extreme were the excessive amounts of makeup, skimpy outfits, and usage of the proper slang. These girls were merely doing what the media had taught them; they were being, or trying to be,

The text references when girls mature early that they often lack self-confidence and many teens that reach puberty early have a dissatisfaction with there body image.( Berk 206) The advice that was given was good, but if it was given by an adult they might have went a step further to talk about eating disorders and warning against unhealthy habits such as over exercising or not eating just as an example. “M” magazine depicts unrealistic images of thin women that have perfectly trimmed bodies and even the ones that are mentioned as being “curvy” are in shape and thin. Teens see images of males and females that have these “perfect” bodies, make-up, hair, and fashion and want to imitate that person and they become that teens new role model. None of the articles in the magazine shows the work that goes into preparing these teens for these articles. Many of the people depicted in the magazine have rigorous work out routines, strict diets, a personal trainer, make-up artists, and access to all the latest fashion because of there fame. As adults we realize that no one wakes up in the morning looking like Taylor Swift or Joe Jonas without a lot of hard work. These stars are depicted in this magazine though and it circulates half way around the world and teens look up to these stars and die trying to look like them or spend there lives loathing themselves because they can not. These images are not supportive of a healthy

Body image crisis is strong evidence which support the idea that media negatively affect the psychology and behavior of children and teenagers. There is an inherent interconnection between the modern media and body image. Today’s media creates stereotypes of perfect bodies which make children and teenagers who do not fit the image lose confidence in them and become depressed. Perfect women according to modern magazines and television should be thin and perfect men should be with large muscles. Children and teenager are not aware of the fact that images that are show in the media are often edited with Photoshop and that everyone is beautiful in his or her own way. These are the reason why they are influenced more by perfect images in the media

The portrayal of women in the media is destroying positive body image in young girls. According to Sarah Grogan, body image is “a person’s perceptions, thoughts and feelings about his or her body”. The media sends the message, from very early on, that what is most important is the way women look to the heterosexual male gaze, and that their value and their worth depends on that. It is easy to understand that the media perpetuates an unattainable beauty standard, but what is more difficult is realising how that affects our adolescents.

(Heubeck 2006) For many young people, especially girls, the ideal continues to chase them as they grow into young women. Young girls begin to internalize the stereotypes and judge themselves by media’s impossible standards. The power that the media holds in impacting the lives of young girls is detrimental and eventually affects their body image, their satisfaction of their own body, and portrayal of their body as an object.

brought in via media, the social network and one 's own culture. Body image becomes