The Pursuit of Success: Can Status Aspirations Negatively Affect Body Satisfaction?

Abstract

The aim of the current study was to investigate whether weight and success interact to produce body dissatisfaction and disordered eating behaviors. To accomplish this aim, participants viewed pictures and read descriptions of women who varied in weight and career success. Participants who were high on status aspiration reported greater body dissatisfaction and ineffectiveness after being exposed to thin, successful women than did the participants who were low on status aspiration. Status aspiring participants, however, did not report greater drive for thinness, maturity fears, or bulimic symptoms. It is hoped that these findings will shed light on ways career women can pursue success without jeopardizing their health.

Full text

Singapore Management University
Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
(Open Access)
School of Social Sciences
1-2011
e Pursuit of Success: Can Status Aspirations
Negatively Aect Body Satisfaction?
A. R. Smith
Norman P. LI
Singapore Management University, normanli@smu.edu.sg
T. Joiner
Follow this and additional works at: hp://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research
Part of the Clinical Psychology Commons
is Journal Article is brought to you for free and open access by the School of Social Sciences at Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management
University. It has been accepted for inclusion in Research Collection School of Social Sciences (Open Access) by an authorized administrator of
Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University. For more information, please email libIR@smu.edu.sg.
Citation
Smith, A. R., LI, Norman P., & Joiner, T..(2011). e Pursuit of Success: Can Status Aspirations Negatively Aect Body Satisfaction?.
Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 30(5), 531-547.
Available at: hp://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/1126

Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, Vol. 30, No. 5, 2011, pp. 531-547
531
© 2011 Guilford Publications, Inc.
This study was funded in part by National Institute of Mental Health grant
F31MH083382 to A. R. Smith (under the sponsorship of T. E. Joiner). The content of this
paper is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the
official views of the National Institute of Mental Health or the National Institutes of
Health.
Address correspondence to April Smith, M.S., Department of Psychology, Florida
State University, 1107 W. Call Street, Tallahassee, FL 32306-1270. E-mail: asmith@psy.fsu.
edu.
SMITH ET AL.
PURSUIT OF SUCCESS
THE PURSUIT OF SUCCESS:
CAN STATUS ASPIRATIONS
NEGATIVELY AFFECT BODY SATISFACTION?
APRIL R. SMITH
Florida State University
NORMAN LI
Singapore Management University
THOMAS E. JOINER
Florida State University
The aim of the current study was to investigate whether weight and success inter-
act to produce body dissatisfaction and disordered eating behaviors. To accom-
plish this aim, participants viewed pictures and read descriptions of women who
varied in weight and career success. Participants who were high on status aspira-
tion reported greater body dissatisfaction and ineffectiveness after being exposed
to thin, successful women than did the participants who were low on status aspira-
tion. Status aspiring participants, however, did not report greater drive for thinness,
maturity fears, or bulimic symptoms. It is hoped that these ndings will shed light
on ways career women can pursue success without jeopardizing their health.
Eating disorders are commonly assumed to primarily afflict ado-
lescent girls. However, research has shown that eating pathology is

532 SMITH ET AL.
still a significant problem for college-aged women (e.g., Drewnows-
ki, Yee, & Krahn, 1988; Striegel-Moore, Silberstein, Grunberg, &
Rodin, 1990). Furthermore, unlike most psychological disorders
(e.g., schizophrenia, anxiety disorders, and mood disorders), an
older age of onset (generally defined as after age 18) indicates a
more pernicious and potentially fatal course for eating disorders
(e.g., Le Grange & Lock, 2005; Ratnasuriya, Eisler, Szmakler, & Rus-
sell, 1991). Although several theories have been proposed in an at-
tempt to explain why adolescence is a particularly high-risk time
frame for the development of eating disorders, the etiological and
maintenance factors for eating disorders in adult women have been
less extensively studied. The aim of the current study is to explore
whether intrasexual competition for career success may contribute
to body dissatisfaction and worse eating attitudes among status as-
piring college-aged women.
INTRASEXUAL RESOURCE COMPETITION
The deliberate restriction of eating—to the point of harming one’s
health—seems to be anything but adaptive. Yet the prevalence of
eating disorders suggests that they are more than random pathol-
ogies. Searching for ultimate explanations, Abed (1998) posited a
“sexual competition hypothesis” whereby eating disorders may re-
sult from female intrasexual competition for both mates and status.
Specifically, the theory holds that since the ancestral past, women
have tended to obtain necessary resources for offspring by securing
long-term mates who have access to such resources and are willing
to share them. Because thinness was a reliable indicator of youth
and fertility, and thus, of female reproductive value (e.g., Brown
& Konner, 1987; Singh, 1994a, 1994b), women may be motivated to
compete with one another on thinness to attract high quality, re-
sourceful mates. However, in modern, industrialized societies, this
competitive mechanism may no longer be producing adaptive be-
haviors. Indeed, despite the fact that there is an optimal level of
thinness that men prefer, women prefer to be significantly thin-
ner than what men find optimally attractive (e.g., Fallon & Rozin,
1985; Rozin & Fallon, 1988). Moreover, the desire for thinness often
leads to serious declines in health and reproductive capacity (APA,
2004).

PURSUIT OF SUCCESS 533
Insights into why these mechanisms appear to be miscalibrated—
and thus, why eating disorders are so prevalent—can be found by
a consideration of numerous key contextual conditions that have
arisen in modern societies and are thus evolutionarily novel. First,
the advent and widespread use of birth control has separated sex
from reproductive consequences, thereby allowing women to have
fewer children and to have children later in life (Abed, 1998). As a
consequence, it is no longer the case that the most fertile nullipara
are primarily competing among themselves. Instead, there is now a
much wider age range of women who appear fertile and thus can
compete for high quality mates. Second, the tools with which women
can directly alter their physical features, including body mass, have
been significantly upgraded. A $160-billion-a-year global cosmetics
industry and surgery market (Pots of Promise, 2003) attests to the
resources being channeled to such activities. Third, women have
had to begin competing for mates increasingly through their own
individual efforts (Abed, 1998). Throughout history, women had
the help of their kin group in increasing their mate value through
practices such as dowries (Dickemann, 1979) and female claustra-
tion (Weisfeld, 1990). However, as kinship ties have increasingly
broken down in modern society, women have had to take the task
of increasing their mate value largely into their own hands (Abed,
1998). Fourth, media (e.g., television, magazines, Internet) creates
the illusion that viewers are in direct competition with the world’s
most physically attractive (and most surgically enhanced) individu-
als. Indeed, many people cannot psychologically differentiate be-
tween images on the screen and actual individuals in their own so-
cial circles (Kanazawa, 2004) and respond to same-sex images as if
they were actual competitors (Gutierres, Kenrick, & Partch, 1999).
Together, these evolutionarily novel factors have greatly increased
the level of real, as well as perceived, intrasexual competition. That
is, mechanisms that underlie intrasexual competition among wom-
en may be overstimulated by novel inputs in modern environments.
Such bombardment may induce women to compete intensely on
thinness to the point where they may not only become undesirable
to potential mates but they may also be damaging their own health.
While these factors have increased the intensity of competition on
thinness, yet another important factor has affected the scope of fe-
male intrasexual competition in modern societies: the entering of

534 SMITH ET AL.
women in large numbers into the workforce. This major movement
has created an entirely new context through which women can more
directly compete for resources. In fact, it is estimated that there will
soon be more women than men in the workforce (Cauchon, 2009).
This is especially relevant in the current tough economic times as
women are more likely than men to get jobs in the limited sectors
of the economy that are growing, such as health care (Cauchon,
2009).
If the pursuit of thinness and career achievement are both com-
petitive processes that ultimately allow women to secure important
resources, then the two processes should be closely related. Specifi-
cally, women who are prone to engaging in one process should be
more likely to engage in the other. Indeed, research suggests that
to women, success is associated with thinness, especially among
status aspiring females. For example, Tiggemann (2001) found that
high school girls who considered intelligence and professional suc-
cess to be important preferred thinner ideal body figures than girls
who did not assign as much import to achievement. The status as-
piring girls associated intelligence and professional success with
a more slender figure. In another study, female participants rated
thin, attractive targets as more successful in life than larger, but still
attractive, targets (Chin, 2002). Additionally, Jarry, Polivy, Herman,
Arrowood, and Pliner (2006) had participants read several vignettes
that depicted a thin or heavy person as either professionally suc-
cessful or unsuccessful. Both dieting and nondieting participants
associated professional success with slenderness and professional
failure with being overweight.
Thus, various lines of research seem to suggest that thinness and
career success are interrelated, and these findings are consistent
with the possibility that both thinness and career success may be
avenues through which women compete for mates and resources.
As such, an intrasexual competition perspective on eating disorders
suggests that a wider class of contextual stimuli may be able to trig-
ger body dissatisfaction and a desire for thinness than previously
considered. Specifically, female body dissatisfaction and desires to
compete on thinness should be triggered not only by encountering
thin females, but also by encountering successful, career-oriented
women.
In fact, studies have shown that people make self-assessments
based not only on individuals with whom they have actual, direct

PURSUIT OF SUCCESS 535
contact, but also on images they are exposed to via media. Such
research has demonstrated that after exposure to thin targets, par-
ticipants endorse a host of body-image and eating related problems.
For example, Halliwell and Dittmar (2004) found that after view-
ing pictures of thin models, women who internalized a thin ideal
reported much greater body-focused anxiety than women who
viewed pictures of average-sized models or no models at all. In an-
other study, women high on drive for thinness (defined as excessive
concerns with dieting and weight preoccupation) reported higher
negative affect after viewing pictures of thin models that persisted
as long as two hours after the manipulation (Hausenblas, Janelle, &
Gardner, 2004). Furthermore, exposure to selected thin body parts,
like a stomach or thighs, has been found to increase female par-
ticipants’ negative mood and body dissatisfaction (Tiggemann &
McGill, 2004).
THE CURRENT STUDY
Although previous research has examined the effects of exposure
to thin models and actresses on participants’ self-esteem, body sat-
isfaction, and/or eating attitudes (e.g., Bissell & Zhou, 2004; Harri-
son, 1997; Stice, Schupak-Neuberg, Shaw, & Stein, 1994; Tiggemann
& Pickering, 1996), to our knowledge no research has investigated
the effect of exposure to successful career women on participants’
body satisfaction and worse eating attitudes. Therefore, guided by
an intrasexual resource competition perspective, we investigated
the possibility that exposure to women who vary not only in terms
of body weight, but also career success, may lead to greater body
shape dissatisfaction and eating attitudes. Because status aspiring
women may be especially attuned to cues of intrasexual competi-
tion, we expected such exposure to most strongly impact the body
shape dissatisfaction and eating attitudes among women with high
status aspiration. Specifically, we hypothesized that there would be
a three-way interaction between status aspiration, target weight,
and target success such that participants who are highly status as-
piring would report more disordered eating attitudes and greater
state body dissatisfaction than participants who are low on status
aspiration after being exposed to targets who are thin and success-
ful.

536 SMITH ET AL.
METHOD
MATERIALS AND PROCEDURE
Pre-Manipulation Measure
The Achievement Motivation Scale (AMS; Cassidy & Lynn, 1989).
The AMS consists of seven subscales: Work Ethic, Pursuit of Ex-
cellence, Status Aspiration, Competitiveness, Acquisitiveness for
Money, Mastery, and Dominance. The Status Aspiration subscale
was administered to measure individual differences on this con-
struct. Participants were asked to report the degree to which they
think or behave in a specific manner using a five-point Likert scale
(1 = never, 5 = always). Sample items from the Status Aspiration
scale include, “I would like an important job where people look up
to me,” “I like to be admired for my achievements.” The reliability
of this subscale in the current sample was acceptable, α = .77.
Post-Manipulation Measures
Body Image State Scale (BISS; Cash, Fleming, Alindogan, Steadman,
& Whitehead, 2002). The BISS was given in order to measure par-
ticipants’ state body satisfaction. The BISS consists of six items that
were written to assess participants’ momentary feelings about their
physical appearance. Participants were asked to respond to these
items using a nine-point Likert scale (1 = Extremely Dissatisfied, 9 =
Extremely Satisfied); thus lower scores indicate more state body dis-
satisfaction. The BISS has good internal consistency, as Cronbach’s
alpha for this scale in the current sample was .84.
Eating Disorders Inventory (EDI; Garner, Olmsted, & Polivy, 1983).
The EDI is a self-report measure of eating-related attitudes and
behaviors. The EDI is the most frequently used standardized self-
report instrument for assessing the cognitive, behavioral, and af-
fective symptoms of eating disorders. It consists of the following
eight subscales: Body Dissatisfaction, Drive for Thinness, Bulimia,
Perfectionism, Interpersonal Distrust, Maturity Fears, Interocep-
tive Awareness, and Ineffectiveness. We believed our manipulation
would have the greatest effect on the Drive for Thinness, Bulimia,
Maturity Fears, and Ineffectiveness subscales because these sub-
scales contain items pertaining to state-like thoughts and feelings,
and therefore are likely to be more malleable. Examples of such items
include: “I think about dieting,” “I feel ineffective as a person,” and

PURSUIT OF SUCCESS 537
“I feel that I can achieve my standards.” Thus, only these four sub-
scales were used in our analyses. The participants were asked to
rate each statement using the following scale: never, rarely, some-
times, frequently, usually, always. These ratings were scored such
that never received a score of 1 and always received a score of 6; this
ensured that a higher score was indicative of more problematic eat-
ing attitudes and behaviors. The alpha coefficients for the subscales
of interest in the current sample were as follows: Drive for Thinness
(.91), Bulimia (.85), Maturity Fears (.75), Ineffectiveness (.81).
Participants and Procedures
Seventy-seven undergraduate women who enrolled in an intro-
ductory psychology course at a large, southeastern state university
participated in the study for course credit. All participants in the
current study signed a consent form agreeing to participate. Par-
ticipants were informed that they would be viewing profiles of 10
women, and completing questionnaires about their personal views,
feelings, and attitudes on the computer, and they were assured that
their responses would be kept confidential. After completing the
experiment, participants were debriefed and any questions or con-
cerns they had were addressed by the experimenters. All procedures
were approved by the university’s Institutional Review Board.
The racial/ethnic composition of this sample was generally repre-
sentative of the university student body and was as follows: 64.9%
Caucasian (n = 50), 18.2% African American (n = 14), 11.7% Hispanic
(n = 9), and 3.9% Asian American (n = 3). In addition, one partici-
pant did not report her ethnicity. The participants’ ages ranged from
17 to 28 (M = 18.52, SD = 1.47).
Participants were given a cover story, which involved telling them
that they would be participating in two short, but unrelated experi-
ments on the computer. They were told that the first experiment
pertained to person perception. They were informed that for this
experiment they would be shown 10 pictures and profiles of women
from various American universities, which they would be asked to
rate on several criteria. They were told that the second experiment
pertained to eating attitudes and would consist of completing ques-
tionnaires on the computer.
After sitting down at the computer, participants first completed
the pre-manipulation questionnaire. Participants were then ran-

538 SMITH ET AL.
domly assigned to one of four conditions: thin, successful targets;
thin, unsuccessful targets; heavy, successful targets; heavy, unsuc-
cessful targets. Next, 10 female targets corresponding to the ex-
perimental condition to which the participant was assigned were
displayed sequentially. After the participant viewed the target pho-
to and read the target’s profile, the participant was prompted to
“Please rate this person’s weight status.” Underneath this prompt
was a 9-point scale, where a score of 1 corresponded to very thin
and a score of 9 corresponded to very overweight. Next, the par-
ticipant was prompted to “Please rate this person on career suc-
cess” on the nine-point scale provided. Finally, the participant was
asked to “Please rate this person on physical attractiveness.” After
the participant entered a value for physical attractiveness, the next
stimulus appeared.
Target weight status was conveyed through full body, digital pho-
tos of 10 thin and 10 heavy females. The photos were pre-rated by
63 undergraduates, who were not included in the current sample,
on a 9-point scale (1 = very thin, 9 = very overweight) as follows:
thin photos (M = 2.14, SD = 0.27), heavy profiles (M = 7.00, SD =
0.26). The means were significantly different (t = -94.03, p < .001).
As expected, in the current sample of 77 participants, target photos
were also rated as significantly thinner in the thin condition (M =
3.02, SD = .71) than in the heavy condition (M = 6.32, SD = .57), (t =
-22.53, p < .001).
These same target photos were also pre-rated for attractiveness by
63 undergraduates, who were not included in the current sample,
on a 9-point scale (1 = extremely unattractive, 9 = extremely attrac-
tive) as follows: thin photos (M = 5.75, SD = 0.68), heavy photos (M
= 5.05, SD = 0.87). These means were not significantly different (t =
1.721, p = .119). However, in the current sample of 77 participants
the thin target photos were rated as significantly more attractive
than heavy photos: thin photos (M = 5.97, SD = .89), heavy photos
(M = 5.32, SD = .87), (t = 3.27, p = .002), and thus the attractiveness
of the target photos was controlled for in all analyses.
To manipulate target career success, each target photo was paired
with a one-paragraph profile, described as being written by the tar-
get in the photo, which conveyed career success through her aca-
demic achievement, employment, and career accomplishments and
aspirations. The profiles were written with similar career areas for
the high- and low-career success conditions but with differing lev-
els of involvement and responsibility.

PURSUIT OF SUCCESS 539
The 10 unsuccessful profiles were pre-rated by 33 undergradu-
ates, who were not included in the current sample, for career success
on a 9-point scale (1 = extremely unsuccessful, 9 = extremely suc-
cessful) as follows: (M = 4.41, SD = 0.41). The 10 successful profiles
were pre-rated by a different set of 33 undergraduates, who also
were not included in the current sample, as follows: (M = 7.32, SD
= 0.40). The means were significantly different (t = 71.55, p < .001).
As expected in the current sample of 77 participants, target profiles
differed significantly on career success: successful (M = 6.81, SD =
1.46), unsuccessful (M = 3.94, SD = .57), (t = -11.44, p < .001).
After finishing the experiment, participants completed the post-
manipulation measures, which they believed were for the second
experiment on eating attitudes. Upon completion, participants were
debriefed about the true nature of the study.
RESULTS
Linear regression analyses were conducted for each of the depen-
dent variables related to eating attitudes (EDI-Bulimia, EDI-Drive
for Thinness, EDI-Maturity Fears, and EDI-Ineffectiveness) and
body satisfaction (BISS) in order to examine potential three-way
interactions between status aspiration (as measured by the AMS),
target weight, and target success.
In prediction of EDI-Ineffectiveness, the following predictors
were entered: Step 1— entry of composite ratings of target attrac-
tiveness to control for the differences in attractiveness between thin
and heavy targets; Step 2—simultaneous entry of the three centered
main effects (status aspiration, target weight, target success) to as-
sess the simple effects of the predictor variables; Step 3—simulta-
neous entry of all centered two-way interactions (target weight X
target success; target weight X status aspiration, target success X
status aspiration; Step 4—entry of the centered three-way interac-
tion (target weight X target success X status aspiration).
The critical test of the main hypothesis is the three-way interac-
tion. Target weight, target success, and status aspiration interacted
to predict EDI Ineffectiveness symptoms, B = -1.55, t = -2.472, p =
.02, f
2
= .23 (see Table 1). To determine the nature of this interaction,
we probed the three-way interaction by using high and low combi-
nations of career success (using values that were one standard de-
viation above or below the mean). A significant two-way interaction

540 SMITH ET AL.
between target weight and status aspiration was found within the
high career success conditions, B = -1.35, t = -3.13, p < .01. There was
no significant interaction for the low career success condition. Thus,
within the high career success conditions, the significant two-way
interaction was probed within the thin and heavy target conditions.
In the thin target condition the effect of status aspiration on partici-
pants’ EDI Ineffectiveness score was significant, B = .99, t = 3.22, p <
.01. There was no significant effect of status aspiration in the heavy
target condition. Thus, high AMS participants reported significant-
ly more Ineffectiveness than low AMS participants in the thin, high
career success condition (see Figure 1).
TABLE 1. Three-Way Interaction Between Achievement Motivation, Weight, and Career
Success on EDI-Ineffectiveness
Statistics at Entry
Step Variable SE
β
t p
1 Target Attractiveness .08 .03 .27 .79
2 Target Attractiveness .09 -.03 -.22 .83
Target Success 1.60 -.20 -1.61 .11
Target Weight 1.50 .09 .73 .47
AMS Status Aspiration .77 .08 .67 .51
3 Target Attractiveness .09 -.03 -.24 .81
Target Success 2.12 -.11 -.65 .52
Target Weight 2.07 .15 .91 .37
AMS Status Aspiration 1.23 .10 .55 .58
Target Weight X Target Success 2.96 -.13 -.67 .51
Target Weight X Status Aspiration 1.51 -.30 -1.89 .06
Target Success X Status Aspiration 1.50 .24 1.45 .15
4 Target Attractiveness .09 .04 .297 .77
Target Success 2.10 -.11 -.67 .50
Target Weight 2.00 .17 1.08 .28
AMS Status Aspiration 1.32 -.12 -.57 .57
Target Weight X Target Success 2.86 -.12 -.64 .52
Target Weight X Status Aspiration 2.12 .100 .46 .65
Target Success X Status Aspiration 1.97 .60 2.78 .01
Target Success X Target Weight X
Status Aspiration
2.98 -.58 -2.47 .02

PURSUIT OF SUCCESS 541
In prediction of the other EDI subscales (Bulimia, Drive for Thin-
ness, and Maturity Fears), the same predictors were entered as in
the regression above. However, none of these analyses yielded a
significant three-way interaction.
In prediction of state body satisfaction (as measured by the BISS),
again the same predictors were entered. The three-way interaction
between target weight, target success, and status aspiration to pre-
dict state body satisfaction was significant, B = 2.09, t = 2.22, p = .03,
f
2
= .16 (see Table 2). A significant two-way interaction between tar-
get weight and status aspiration was found within the high career
success conditions, B = 1.65, t = 2.54, p = .01. There was no signifi-
cant interaction within the low career success conditions. We next
examined the main effect of status aspiration among participants in
the thin and heavy target conditions, and found a significant effect
within the thin target condition, B = -1.13, t = -2.43, p = .01. More-
over, the correlation between status aspiration and the BISS within
the thin, successful condition was significant (r = -.46, p < .05). Thus,
high AMS participants reported more state body dissatisfaction (as
indicated by their lower scores) than low AMS participants in the
thin, successful condition.
DISCUSSION
The purpose of the present study was to explore whether intrasexu-
al competition for career success may contribute to body dissatisfac-
FIGURE 1. Three-Way Interaction Between Target Weight, Target
Success, and Participants’ Status Aspiration to Predict EDI
Ineffectiveness Scores
High Career Success Target Profiles
20
22
24
26
28
30
32
34
High AMS participants Low AMS participants
EDI Ineffectiveness
Thin target photos
Overweight target photos

542 SMITH ET AL.
tion and worse eating attitudes among status aspiring college-aged
women. Specifically, we sought to determine if exposure to potential
competitors who varied on career success and weight status would
differentially activate intrasexual competition motives.
Our hypothesis that participants’ level of status aspiration would
interact with target weight and target success to predict greater body
dissatisfaction and more disordered eating attitudes was partially
supported. Specifically, participants’ status aspiration interacted
with target weight and target success to predict greater body dissat-
isfaction and ineffectiveness. Participants who were high on status
aspiration reported significantly worse body satisfaction after be-
ing exposed to thin, successful targets than participants who were
TABLE 2. Three-Way Interaction Between Achievement Motivation, Weight, and Career
Success on the BISS
Statistics at entry
Step Variable SE
β
t p
1 Target Attractiveness .12 -.09 -.81 .42
2 Target Attractiveness .13 -.14 -1.11 .27
Target Success 2.20 -.10 -.82 .42
Target Weight 2.34 -.07 -.60 .55
AMS Status Aspiration 1.13 -.13 -1.07 .29
3 Target Attractiveness .13 -.14 -1.11 .27
Target Success 3.10 .01 .04 .97
Target Weight 3.24 .01 .08 .94
AMS Status Aspiration 1.84 -.25 -1.31 .19
Target Weight X Target Success 4.43 -.16 -.78 .44
Target Weight X Status Aspiration 2.25 .21 1.34 .19
Target Success X Status Aspiration 2.24 -.03 -.19 .85
4 Target Attractiveness .13 -.20 -1.60 .12
Target Success 3.02 -.01 -.09 .93
Target Weight 3.15 .01 .08 .94
AMS Status Aspiration 2.00 -.05 -.24 .81
Target Weight X Target Success 4.31 -.17 -.85 .40
Target Weight X Status Aspiration 3.19 -.15 -.68 .50
Target Success X Status Aspiration 2.97 -.37 -1.65 .10
Target Success X Target Weight X
Status Aspiration
4.49 .53 2.22 .03

PURSUIT OF SUCCESS 543
low on status aspiration. Moreover, compared to participants low
on status aspiration, participants high on status aspiration reported
more ineffectiveness after being exposed to the thin, successful tar-
gets. However, status aspiring participants did not report greater
drive for thinness, maturity fears, or bulimic symptoms. The cross-
sectional nature of the current study may explain the lack of sig-
nificance for these symptoms. It may be that status aspiring women
would resort to inappropriate compensatory mechanisms and/or
dietary restriction in order to reduce feelings of ineffectiveness and
body dissatisfaction in the face of prolonged competition.
These findings are important for several reasons. Given that the
fertility rate continues to decline in Western countries, women will
be able to remain thinner longer, and thus may desire to increase
their mate value through means aside from thinness, like career
success. Although this would appear to be an adaptive strategy,
failure to increase one’s mate value by being successful may lead
some women to feel more ineffective and more dissatisfied with
their bodies. In combination with high perfectionism, feelings of
ineffectiveness and body dissatisfaction can be especially perni-
cious and have in fact been found to predict the development of
bulimic symptoms (Bardone-Cone, Abramson, Vohs, Heatherton, &
Joiner, 2006) and to contribute to the maintenance and exacerbation
of bulimic symptoms in adult women (Holm-Denoma et al., 2005).
Moreover, it is likely that women with status aspirations will find
themselves in situations where there will be other status aspiring
women. Thus, there appears to a paradoxical nature to success; al-
though aspiring for status may help women become more success-
ful, it may also make them more vulnerable to the development of
an eating disorder.
The current study possesses several strengths. First, this is one
of a handful of studies to directly test the sexual competition hy-
pothesis of eating disorders (cf. Li, Smith, Griskevicius, Cason, &
Bryan, 2010). The results from this study further support the idea
that intrasexual competition for status, independent of intrasexual
competition for mates, could contribute to the development of an
eating disorder. Moreover, this study systematically manipulated
target weight and target success, which allowed for a more thor-
ough examination of the interaction between these factors in the
prediction of body dissatisfaction and disordered eating attitudes.
Additionally, we found significant, moderately sized effects, even
after controlling for target attractiveness.

544 SMITH ET AL.
Several limitations of the study are also important to note. First,
the sample consisted of nonclinical, college-aged women, so we
cannot be sure that the observed results can be generalized to clini-
cal samples. However, our sample was well suited for investigating
adult onset (i.e., after the age of 18) disordered eating as all our par-
ticipants were over the age of 18. Another limitation of the current
study is that data were acquired through self-report and, as such,
must be interpreted with caution. Furthermore, although we at-
tempted to make the targets’ ethnicity reflective of the general stu-
dent body (i.e., 20% of the targets were African American and 10%
were Hispanic), the majority of the target photos (70%) were Cau-
casian; thus, non-Caucasian participants may not have found the
manipulation to be as salient. Future research should explore how
utilizing ethnically diverse targets affects the salience of the manip-
ulation for minority participants. Also, the present study consisted
of four conditions in which target photos were either thin or heavy
and target profiles were either successful or unsuccessful; however,
future studies investigating the effects of weight status and career
success on eating attitudes and body satisfaction may wish to em-
ploy neutral weight and career success conditions. Finally, in order
to understand if increased body dissatisfaction and ineffectiveness
lead to the development of disordered eating in status aspiring
women future longitudinal studies should be conducted.
The results of this study have potentially important clinical and oc-
cupational implications. For instance, it may be important to assess
for status aspiration in patients with eating disorders, as this orien-
tation may predict a worse course for the disorder and/or indicate
different types of interventions. For example, one intervention for
status oriented women with eating disorders may be to teach them
multiple strategies they can employ to increase their mate value
and/or status. Thus, if they found that they were unable to execute
one strategy (e.g., being successful in a career), they would be able
to attempt another (e.g., mastering a particular skill, becoming a
good parent). Being able to use multiple strategies to improve mate
value and/or status may decrease the likelihood that they will rely
on any one (e.g., weight loss). Dialectical Behavior Therapy tech-
niques of radical acceptance and mindfulness may also be helpful
for women struggling with these issues. For instance, mindfulness
strategies could be used to help status oriented women become and
remain aware of the choices open to them, and radical acceptance

PURSUIT OF SUCCESS 545
could be employed when they have to let go of one strategy to em-
brace another.
Female intrasexual competition for mates and status is likely to
continue to increase in industrialized societies. Although modern
women now have more strategies they can employ to increase their
mate value, it appears that being unable to successfully employ
them may activate a default strategy of weight loss. Thus, a poten-
tially important part of prevention and treatment programs for eat-
ing disorders may be to help women develop multiple avenues and
opportunities to increase their mate value and status.
REFERENCES
Abed, R. T. (1998). The sexual competition hypothesis for eating disorders. British
Journal of Medical Psychology, 71, 525-547.
American Psychiatric Association. (2004). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental
disorders (fourth ed., text revision). Washington, DC: American Psychiatric
Association.
Bardone-Cone, A.M., Abramson, Y., Vohs, K.D., Heatherton, T.F., & Joiner, T.E.
(2006). Predicting bulimic symptoms. An interactive model of self-efficacy,
perfectionism, and perceived weight status. Behavior Research and Therapy, 44,
27-42.
Bissell, K., & Zhou, P. (2004). Must-see TV or ESPN: Entertainment and sports me-
dia exposure and body-image distortion in college women. Journal of Com-
munication, 54, 5-21.
Brown, P.J., & Konner, M. (1987). An anthropological perspective on obesity. Annals
of the New York Academy of Sciences, 499, 29-46.
Cash, T. F., Fleming, E. C., Alindogan, J., Steadman, L., & Whitehead, A. (2002).
Beyond body image as a trait: The development and validation of the body
image states scale. Eating Disorders: Journal of Treatment & Prevention, 10,
103-113.
Cassidy, T., & Lynn, R. (1989). A multifactorial approach to achievement motiva-
tion: The development of a comprehensive measure. Journal of Occupational
Psychology, 62, 301-312.
Cauchon, D. (2009). Women gain as men lose jobs. USA Today. Retrieved Septem-
ber 3, 2009, from: http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2009-09-02-
womenwork_N.htm
Chin, P. (2002). “If only I could be thin like her, maybe I could be happy like her”:
The self-implications of associating being thin and attractive with possible
life outcomes. Dissertation Abstracts International: Section B: The Sciences and
Engineering, 62, 3418.
Dickemann, M. (1979). The ecology of mating systems in hypergynous dowry soci-
eties. Social Science Information, 18, 163-195.
Drewnowski, A., Yee, D. K., & Krahn, D. D. (1988). Bulimia in college women: Inci-
dence and recovery rates. The American Journal of Psychiatry, 145, 753-755.

546 SMITH ET AL.
Faer, L. M., Hendricks, A., Abed, R. T., & Figueredo, J. (2005). The evolutionary
psychology of eating disorders: Female competition for mates or for status?
Psychology and Psychotherapy: Theory, Research and Practice, 78, 397-417.
Fallon, A.E., & Rozin, P. (1985). Sex differences in perceptions of desirable body
shape. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 94, 102-105.
Garner, D. M., Olmsted, M. P., & Polivy, J. (1983). The eating disorder inventory: A
measure of cognitive-behavioral dimensions of anorexia nervosa and buli-
mia. In P. L. Darby, P. E. Garfinkel, D. M. Garner, & D. V. Coscina (Eds.), An-
orexia nervosa: Recent developments in research (pp. 173-184). New York: Liss.
Gutierres, S. E., Kenrick, D. T., & Partch, J. J. (1999). Beauty, dominance, and the
mating game: Contrast effects in self-assessment reflect gender differences in
mate selection. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 25, 1126-1134.
Halliwell, E., & Dittmar, H. (2004). Does size matter? The impact of model’s body
size on women’s body-focused anxiety and advertising effects. Journal of So-
cial and Clinical Psychology, 23, 104-122.
Harrison, K. (1997). Does interpersonal attraction to thin media personalities pro-
mote eating disorders? Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 41, 478-500.
Hausenblas, H., Janelle, C., & Gardner, R. (2004). Viewing physique slides: Affective
responses of women at high and low drive for thinness. Journal of Social and
Clinical Psychology, 23, 45-60.
Holm-Denoma, J. M., Gordon, K. H., Bardone-Cone, A. M., Vohs, K. D., Abramson,
L. Y., et al. (2005). A test of an interactive model of bulimic symptomatology
in adult women. Behavior Therapy, 36, 311-321.
Jarry, J. L., Polivy, J., Herman, P., Arrowood, A. J., & Pliner, P. (2006). Restrained and
unrestrained eaters’ attributions of success and failure to body weight and
perception of social consensus: The special case of romantic success. Journal
of Social and Clinical Psychology, 25, 885-905.
Kanazawa, S. (2004). The Savanna principle. Managerial and Decision Economics, 25,
41-54.
Le Grange, D., & Lock, J. (2005). The dearth of psychological treatment studies for
anorexia nervosa. International Journal of Eating Disorders, 37, 79-91.
Li, N. P., Smith, A. R., Griskevicius, V., Cason, M. J., & Bryan, A. (2010). Intrasexual
competition and eating restriction in heterosexual and homosexual individu-
als. Evolution and Human Behavior, 31, 365-372.
Pots of Promise. (2003). The economist. Retrieved from http://www.economist.com/
node/1795852
Ratnasuriya, R. H., Eisler, I., Szmukler, G. I., & Russell, G. F. (1991). Anorexia ner-
vosa: Outcome and prognostic factors after 20 years. British Journal of Psychia-
try, 158, 495-502.
Rozin, P., & Fallon, A. (1988). Body image, attitudes to weight, and misperceptions
of figure preferences of the opposite sex: A comparison of men and women in
two generations. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 97, 342-345.
Singh, D. (1994a). Ideal female body shape: Role of body weight and waist-to-hip-
ratio. International Journal of Eating Disorders, 16, 283-288.
Singh, D. (1994b). Is thin really beautiful and good? Relationship between waist-to-
hip-ratio (WHR) and female attractiveness. Personality and Individual Differ-
ences, 16, 123-132.

PURSUIT OF SUCCESS 547
Stice, E., Schupak-Neuberg, E., Shaw, H. E., & Stein, R. I. (1994). Relation of media
exposure to eating disorder symptomatology: An examination of mediating
mechanisms. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 103, 836-840.
Striegel-Moore, R. H., Silberstein, L. R., Grunberg, N. E., & Rodin, J. (1990). Compet-
ing on all fronts: Achievement orientation and disordered eating. Sex Roles,
23, 697-702.
Tiggemann, M. (2001). Effect of gender composition of school on body concerns in
adolescent women. International Journal of Eating Disorders, 29, 239-243.
Tiggemann, M., & McGill, B. (2004) The role of social comparison in the effect of
magazine advertisements on women’s mood and body dissatisfaction. Jour-
nal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 23, 23-44.
Tiggemann, M., & Pickering, A. S. (1996). Role of television in adolescent women’s
body dissatisfaction and drive for thinness. International Journal of Eating Dis-
orders, 20, 199-203.
Weisfeld, G. E. (1990) Sociobiological patterns of Arab culture. Ethology and Sociobiol-
ogy, 11, 23-49.

Copyright of Journal of Social & Clinical Psychology is the property of Guilford Publications Inc. and its
content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's
express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.