Content uploaded by Alla Kholmogorova
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Alla Kholmogorova on Feb 11, 2019
Content may be subject to copyright.
Standards of physical beauty and mental health in children and
young people in the era of the information revolution
A. Kholmogorova, P. Tarhanova, and O. Shalygina
Counseling & Clinical Psychology Department, Moscow State University of Psychology and Education, Moscow,
Russia
ABSTRACT
This study examines negative consequences of promotion of unhealthy
beauty standards for the mental health of young people. The article
provides the review of literature on the effects of promotion of
unhealthy beauty standards in cyberspace on eating disorders and
narcissistic attitudes, the role of fashion dolls in the formation of
unhealthy physical beauty standards, as well as the research into
dissatisfaction with appearance and physical perfectionism at a young
age. Vygotsky’s cultural-historical theory of cognitive development
serves as a framework to describe the mechanisms by which young
people form perceptions of physical attractiveness and attitudes toward
their body. The article presents results of two studies conducted by
authors. The first study demonstrates internalization of unhealthy
beauty standards among preschool-aged Russian girls using the
original experimental method ‘Choose a doll’. The other shows
significantly higher levels of dissatisfaction with own body and physical
perfectionism in young men and women living in big cities compared
to their peers from large provincial towns and identifies high level of
parental criticism and other communication dysfunction in families as a
significant predictor of physical perfectionism in children. The authors
conclude that social factors play an important role in the formation of
unhealthy standards of physical attractiveness among children and
young people.
ARTICLE HISTORY
Received 24 October 2017
Accepted 26 October 2017
KEYWORDS
Internet; mental health;
beauty standards; eating
disorders; dissatisfaction with
appearance; physical
perfectionism; fashion dolls
Today there is no longer any doubt that the internet is an indispensable part of life in the modern
information society. Socializing on the internet using computer-based technologies is the new form
of communication. A survey carried out in 2009 in various localities in Russia showed that every
eighth teenager (14 to 17 years old) ‘lives’on the internet (which means that he/she doesn’t only
spend a lot of time on the web but also rates this time as being subjectively very important) (Solda-
tova & Kropaleva, 2009). More than 75% of Russian children and teenagers have a profile on at least
one social network, sometimes on several (Soldatova & Zotova, 2011). This allows us to talk about
the internet as a specific virtual reality, a social and cultural environment that has a huge impact on
the formation and development of identity (Gordilov, 2011).
There are positive and negative effects from using computer-based and internet technologies for
communication, and it should be noted that the latter attract greater attention from specialists and
are more actively researched (Gordilov, 2011; Mararitsa, Antonova, & Eritsyan, 2013). According to
the specialists, possible negative consequences of internet socialization are as follows: interference
with the ability to communicate with real people, loss of identity, formation of computer and internet
© 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
CONTACT A. Kholmogorova kholmogorova-2007@yandex.ru Counseling & Clinical Psychology Department, Moscow State
University of Psychology and Education, Moscow, Russia
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CULTURE AND MENTAL HEALTH, 2017
https://doi.org/10.1080/17542863.2017.1394007
addiction, distortion of value systems, information stress, neuroses, depressive states and, in the end,
the desocialization of the individual (Voiskunskij, 2002).
One of the most serious negative consequences of the internet is the spread of information that is
dangerous to the mental health of children and young people as well as the application of pressure as
certain standards of appearance are imposed.
Analysis shows that a particularly dangerous trend is the rapid rise in eating disorders among
young people, and the internet plays a significant negative role in this issue (Shalygina & Kholmo-
gorova, 2015). On the website ‘Anorexia, Diet, Bulimia anorexic club’
1
the most common answers to
the question ‘Why did you join this group?’are the following:
Because I believe that anorexics are the most beautiful girls/ because I think that a dystrophic figure is beautiful
and aristocratic/ it is beautiful, anorexic girls are gracious and tender, they do not depend on food like many
others!/ I want to be anorexic/ I believe I am fat and I want to be skinny so that my bones stick out.
There are dozens of such websites on the internet and there are tens of thousands of registered users
2
.
Here girls share information (extreme diets, drugs, fat burners, etc.), publish their starvation journals
that resemble chronicles of slow suicide
3
, support each other in their aim of losing weight and recruit
new followers
4
. In the USA, the number of people hospitalized with eating disorders grew by 19%
between 2000 and 2006 (Averett, Terrizzi, & Wang, 2013). According to the American Association
for Anorexia and Bulimia, anorexia nervosa affects up to one million (female) Americans each year
(Wulf, 2015), but the amount of undiagnosed cases may be even bigger
5
. There is a clear link between
time of onset and age: in 95% of cases it is young girls between 12 and 25 years of age who become ill.
There is unsettling published research data about eating disorders becoming ‘younger’: they can
start at the age of six to seven years and the risks of becoming ill increase with each subsequent
year (Dittmar, 2012).
The promotion of so-called fashion dolls is an important factor in this trend. It reinforces stan-
dards of an unnaturally thin body shape with distorted proportions even at preschool age (Shalygina
& Kholmogorova, 2014).
Analysis of internet resources about fashion dolls has shown that the child audience has access to
a wide variety of products which incorporate fashion dolls; these include cartoons, computer games,
video clips, musicals, advertisements
6
and videos that have been made by children themselves. The
amount of visual information replicating the physical ideal is massively on the rise here. In all cases,
the doll’s appearance is judged superior and is associated with success in life. When urging parents to
purchase a Barbie doll, advertisers stress its ‘style, glamour and rare beauty …The Barbie figure
incorporates the image of a successful and beautiful woman, with a stunning figure and great
taste, and your daughter will aim for that style in her life’
7
.
Advertising texts vividly demonstrate the specific nature of modern culture, one which stimulates
in girls the need to show themselves off, and generates grand fantasies and dreams about admiration
and adoration from others. It is not surprising that nowadays the problem of narcissism resembles an
epidemic, since the essential ideology of these dolls, the ideology of glamour, makes up a significant
proportion of the Russian mass media today (Surnov & Tkhostov, 2005).
The contemporary social and cultural model of adopting unrealistic physical beauty standards
(Tiggermann, 2012) as the basis for dissatisfaction with one’s own appearance has a lot in common
with the ideas of Vygotsky’s cultural-historical theory of cognitive development (Vygotskii, 1984,
2007). A crucial concept for the theme of this article is introduced in Vygotsky’s cultural-historical
psychology –namely the social situation in which a child, teenager, or young person develops. It can
be defined as the totality of relationships and influencing factors from the social environment in
which psychological development and formation of the personality take place. Standards of appear-
ance can be considered one of the important aspects of the social development situation; they are
adopted by a child through the mechanism of internalization and serve as an internal tool for reg-
ulating the attitude towards their own appearance and the appearance of other people. When unrea-
listic, unhealthy standards become this internal tool in the form of a system of perceptions about
2A. KHOLMOGOROVA ET AL.
beauty, they induce a high level of dissatisfaction with the person’s own appearance and a highly
critical attitude toward others. This, in turn, leads to negative consequences for mental health in
the form of depression and anxiety symptoms, eating disorders, problems in relationships with
other people and low levels of social support.
According to Vygotsky, the standards accepted in a culture are communicated to the child pri-
marily by the adult, which makes communication with family members and other adults close to
the child (for example, teachers) particularly important. As children grow up, their peers start to
play a more and more significant role. However, in modern society, children begin to socialize on
the internet very early on, which includes contact with advertising by the companies that produce
fashion dolls and associated merchandise. As website analysis shows, these adverts purposefully gen-
erate a desire in children to obtain these dolls and be like them, in other words, they play a big part in
promoting the internalization of pathogenic standards of attractiveness even at a very young age.
Thus, contemporary children find themselves in a very complicated social developmental situ-
ation, because they are constructing their identity in new conditions where their childhood is the
focus of attention of marketing companies, and each specific child can be contacted directly through
various gadgets, bypassing traditional mediators between the child and the world, such as parents or
teachers (Van Oudenhoven, 2010). It should be noted that candidates intending to work in adver-
tising that targets children and adolescents are rigorously selected: they are young (not very much
older than the age of the target audience) and are interested in the merchandise they are recommend-
ing. In their eyes it is not even ‘merchandise’, but rather their personal collection, and their love for
the uniqueness of their showpieces motivates them to share ‘the best’they have with the children
8
.
They should have the following professional qualities: ‘contact’,‘concern’,‘psychological interest in
others’,‘warmth in communication (see Baudrillard, 2006b), which are simply used to promote mer-
chandise better. “Everywhere we can see advertising that mimics the manner of a familiar, intimate,
personal relationship’, writes J. Baudrillard. ‘Everywhere there is a flood of false frankness, person-
alized discourse, emotionality, and an organized, personal approach’(Baudrillard, 2006a, p.206). In
children, this communication evokes feelings of trust and admiration toward the adult, and through
buying the merchandise advertised by their idol they identify with the adult and feel they belong. It is
not surprising that thousands and thousands of girls, imitating their favourite bloggers, film their
own similar video clips, and thus becoming free advertising agents for the merchandise. There are
thousands of these videos in cyberspace, they are filmed after any sort of purchase (dolls, clothes,
accessories for them, magazines, notepads, erasers with appropriate brand imagery, and so forth),
placed on the internet and find their viewers.
A lot has been written about the exclusive role that the cultural phenomenon of the doll plays in
the establishment of a child’s identity and about its ability have a profound influence on the child’s
psyche, and emotional and moral development
9
. However, the major manufacturers of the fashion
dolls most popular today are also aware of this role: it is difficult to find a little girl nowadays who
doesn’t own at least one of the following: Barbie, Bratz, Winx, Monster High or Liv doll
10
. The values
celebrated today in popular culture are embodied by these dolls: unrealistic bodily proportions,
extreme thinness
11
, a sexualized image, glamour. Discussions about the possible consequences
that playing with a Barbie doll may have on a child have come up numerous times. For example,
Kuther and McDonald (2004) highlighted the importance of play and fantasy as an integral part
of the socialization of a child, i.e. the process of adopting values and ideals. They suggested that
the body image portrayed by the fashion dolls may later manifest itself in the formation of a negative
body image and self-esteem in young girls.
After conducting experimental research, Dittmar and her colleagues concluded that through play-
ing with a doll and ‘being a doll’, children can adopt socio-cultural perceptions of the ideal body,
personified by the Barbie doll, and base their perceptions of their own ideal self on them. By depict-
ing unrealistic body proportions, such dolls contain an unhealthy message about what constitutes a
normal body size and may influence the formation of perceptions of the norm. When playing with a
toy and using it as a role model, a child captures the image at an unconscious level. Dittmar et al.
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CULTURE AND MENTAL HEALTH 3
believe that the results of their experiment confirm Vygotsky’s concept of internalization and Ban-
dura’s social learning theory, in which external stimuli become internal ones (Dittmar, 2012; Ditt-
mar, Halliwell, & Ive, 2006).
It should be stressed that appearance has always been a topic of special attention in human cul-
ture. Appearance standards could take very severe forms and could relate to the face, figure, clothes,
smell, and be detailed and differentiated to a greater or lesser degree. Teenagers and young people
always experience their non-conformity with the defined appearance requirements particularly pain-
fully, even though their own demands may be rather peculiar. Perceptions about ideal appearances
may be specific not only to different age groups but also to different social strata, subcultures and
different historical periods.
By way of comparison with the modern developmental situation of adolescents, let us turn to a
classic work by Tolstoy which is a product of reflection on his own childhood and youth and reveals a
difficult search for identity by a young man from a noble family in the nineteenth century. Even as a
child, Nikolenka Irteniev remembered some unflattering words by his parents about his appearance
and endured this painfully. In his youth he makes extraordinary efforts to fit the ideal image, to be
comme il faut, i.e. to fit the standards of noble society in all respects, including manners, clothes and
appearance. Tolstoy dedicates a whole chapter to this concept, one which had such a strong influence
on the young Nikolenka, in his famous trilogy ‘Childhood. Boyhood. Youth’.
‘At the time of which I am speaking, my own favourite, fundamental system of division in this
respect was into people “comme il faut”and people “comme il ne faut pas”–the latter subdivided,
again, into people merely not “comme il faut”and the lower orders. People “comme il faut”I
respected, and looked upon as worthy to consort with me as my equals; the second of the above cat-
egories I pretended merely to despise, but in reality hated, and nourished towards them a kind of
feeling of offended personality; while the third category had no existence at all, so far as I was con-
cerned, since my contempt for them was too complete. …
I hardly like to think how much of the best and most valuable time of my first sixteen years of
existence I wasted upon its acquisition ….
Once I remember asking Dubkoff, after much zealous and careful labouring at my finger-nails
(his own were extraordinarily good), whether his nails had always been as now, or whether he
had done anything to make them so: to which he replied that never within his recollection had
he done anything to them, and that he could not imagine a gentleman’s nails possibly being different.
This answer incensed me greatly, for I had not yet learnt that one of the chief conditions of ‘comme il
faut’-ness was to hold one’s tongue about the labour by which it had been acquired. ‘Comme il faut’-
ness I looked upon as not only a great merit, a splendid accomplishment, an embodiment of all the
perfection which one must strive to attain, but as the one indispensable condition without which
there could never be happiness, nor glory, nor any good whatsoever in this world’(Tolstoy, 2009).
Thus perfection reached through effort is misrepresented as a natural characteristic of a special
few, which serves as a basis for a union of perfectionism and narcissism, associated with a position
of specialness, selectiveness and exceptionality. Tolstoy goes on to make a surprisingly accurate
observation about the way in which the search for a calling and a purpose in life was, for his prota-
gonist, imperceptibly substituted with the task of attaining all the attributes of comme il faut.
“Yet neither waste of the golden hours which I consumed in constantly endeavouring to observe the many ardu-
ous, unattainable conditions of ‘comme il faut’-ness (to the exclusion of any more serious pursuit), nor dislike of
and contempt for nine-tenths of the human race, nor disregard of all the beauty that lay outside the narrow
circle of ‘comme il faut’-ness comprised the whole of the evil which the idea wrought in me. The chief evil
of all lay in the notion acquired that a man need not strive to become a tchinovnik [official.], a coachbuilder,
a soldier, a savant, or anything useful, so long only as he was ‘comme il faut’- that by attaining the latter quality
he had done all that was demanded of him, and was even superior to most people”(Tolstoy, 2009).
Here, Tolstoy touches upon the problem of the establishment of an identity in a young man –the
problem of narcissistic emptiness, when the purpose in life becomes that of obtaining the feeling
of superiority to other people through particular manners and appearance. With the insight so
4A. KHOLMOGOROVA ET AL.
characteristic of him, Tolstoy anticipated today’s cutting-edge research into how society influences
the establishment of identity (and body image as part of that identity). These studies show that it is a
more or less developed self which serves as a defence against the negative influence of standards of
appearance imposed by society and mass media and which nowadays are becoming poorly compa-
tible with physical and mental health. Teenagers and young people, of course, are the group with the
least protection against these influences. High society standards are communicated to Nikolenka by
his elder brother and his brother’s university friends, who are his main authority at that time. The
description of incredible efforts to improve appearance, French pronunciation, and manners can be
considered an example of socially-prescribed perfectionism transformed into internal standards of
behaviour and appearance.
In contemporary society, standards of appearance are acquiring globalized traits and are rigidly
dictated by mass media, where both overt and covert advertising is acquiring an increasingly promi-
nent role. And this is the distinguishing feature of the social situation of the development of modern
children, teenagers, and young people. The fact that adult fashion trends are being transmitted to
children without any regard for possible consequences is worrying. The extreme beauty standards
that have become even more severe in the past decades have quickly been reflected in dolls: 2001
saw the creation of Bratz, even more fragile and sexualized than Barbie, then Monster High came
on the scene –fragile, unrealistically thin dolls with scars, tattoos, bolts in their necks, etc.
The article by the British psychologist –already cited above –Helga Dittmar in the Journal of
Social and Clinical Psychology, which was dedicated to how the advertising of unrealistic ideals con-
cerning appearance negatively influences body image and human behaviour, has become one of the
most cited publications of recent years. Referring to numerous research studies, the author writes:
It is hard to overstate the significance of body image as a research area at the interface of social and clinical
psychology. Body dissatisfaction, the experience of negative thoughts and esteem about one’s body, is linked
to a range of physical and mental health problems, including disordered eating, obesity, body dysmorphic dis-
order, depression, or low self-esteem (cf., Cash & Pruzinsky, 2002; Polivy & Herman, 2002; Thompson, 2004). It
is also implicated in the increasing use of body-shaping behaviors with potentially unhealthy consequences,
such as cosmetic surgery, unbalanced diet regimes, or steroid abuse (Dittmar, 2009, p. 1).
The author concludes that body image is one of the key factors in physical and psychological
health.
It was Dittmar and her co-authors who demonstrated that unrealistic body standards begin to
form at a very early age. For example, even with girls as young as five to seven years old, playing
with Barbie-type dolls may cause them to be dissatisfied with their bodies and try to become thinner
(Dittmar et al., 2006)
Following on from Dittmar et al. (2006) and Dittmar (2012) Shalygina and Kholmogorova, in
their joint research, put forward the hypothesis that modern dolls, such as Barbie, Bratz, Monster
High, etc. (as well as similar dolls and fake copies) may serve as models of external attractiveness
for young girls. When playing with the doll, the child introjects the external appearance that the
doll demonstrates as her internal standard of beautiful appearance.
To test the hypothesis relating to the internalization of unhealthy appearance standards, the
authors used a specially developed experimental method called ‘Choose a doll’, aimed at revealing
perceptions of external attractiveness among preschool-age girls. The experimental group consisted
of 23 girls aged from four to seven years old who attended a municipal kindergarten in Moscow (two
of them were four, seven of them were five, 13 of them were six and one girl was seven years old).
Parental consent was obtained to monitor each child, and the child’s wishes were also taken into
account.
Five dolls were chosen for the experiment (four were taken from the ones that lots of girls often
bring to kindergarten; the overwhelming majority were white-skinned, blonde Barbie or Bratz dolls.
That collection alone says a lot about the girls’preferences). A china doll of the same height, but with
a normal girl’s build and appearance, was added to these.
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CULTURE AND MENTAL HEALTH 5
Each child was monitored individually. Five dolls were placed at equal intervals on a table in front
of the test subject. The girl was instructed to choose the doll that she liked the best and explain what
she liked most in this doll. This doll was then placed out of sight of the child and she was repeatedly
asked to choose another doll, until all dolls had been thus commented upon. The choices and state-
ments that the girls made were recorded in the protocol. The data evaluation included the following:
(1) analysis of the choice order and thus the identification of the most and the least preferred dolls;
(2) analysis of the child’s comments (the appearance characteristics that the children defined as
‘beautiful/ not beautiful’were taken into account).
The results of the experiment showed that in all 23 cases, the first doll to be chosen was always one
of the modern fashion dolls that embody the standards of an unrealistically thin figure, with exces-
sively accentuated shapes and facial features. The chine girl-doll was never chosen first. What is
more, in 16 cases out of 23, the girls chose her only after choosing four other dolls, and only because
there was no other choice to make.
Following the instructions given by the researcher, the girls first made a choice using an emotional
criterion (‘Like it the most’), and then commented on what they specifically liked about the doll.
When making a choice, the girls paid attention both to body characteristics and to clothes, acces-
sories, shoes and makeup. The difference in the total amount of comments on physical attractiveness
between the most preferred (Bratz doll with an extremely sexualized appearance) and the least pre-
ferred (girl-doll) doll amounts to 43 points. This difference in the total amount of comments allowed
the authors to hypothesize that the experiment’s participants are interested in the exaggerated image
of physical attractiveness that is embodied by fashion dolls, and that this body image is clearly more
preferable to the more realistic body type that was demonstrated by the girl-doll. Moreover, in the
small amount of statements made about the figure of the girl-doll, the preschoolers characterized it as
‘fat/large/well-fed’; the statements they made were often negative: ‘She is unattractive, she doesn’t
look beautiful’(M., five years old); ‘I don’t like her, her body is fat’(М., six years old); ‘Obviously,
this one has ugly fat legs, but this one (Bratz no.1) has pretty thin legs’(N., six years old); ‘Her figure
is larger, her hands are bigger in size, and I like small and long hands, and her legs are shorter, you
see her legs end here, and the other dolls’legs end here’(K., six years old).
One of the girls suddenly gave a positive comment about the girl-doll that was rejected by all:
‘This one is normal, like everyone should be, she isn’t skinny. She is well-fed. My grandma says
that it is important to be well-fed’. However, the choices and comments she made next make it
obvious that this is just a tribute to social desirability and adjustment to an adult who is concerned
with eating habits of the child. Her first choice was a Bratz doll, and this is how she explained her
choice: ‘She is thin, like me. It’s simple: you should just stop eating anything, eat only croissants or
crackers’(D., seven years old). In this case the ideal of a thin figure has already been absorbed and a
strategy for retaining it is already forming. This same girl said about a doll that she chose: ‘This one is
also thin. Why make dolls fat? So that girls will be fat too?’Speech analysis demonstrated that 16 out
of 23 girls commented on the dolls’build and made judgements such as good, beautiful, slim, fragile,
thin, even, graceful in respect of the figure of the fashion dolls (21 comments in total) and used
characteristics such as chubby, fat, large, ugly or well-fed in respect of the girl-doll’s body shape
(a total of nine comments).
In many of the girls’statements there is a direct indication of their positive emotions towards one
or other fashion doll: ‘I like it/ I like dolls like that/ I would like to have one like that’, which may be
considered an indirect manifestation of an unhealthy standard of ideal appearance that has formed
even at preschool age.
In 2006 (half a century after the appearance of Barbie), Dittmar, Halliwell, and Ive presented the
results of the above-mentioned, first experimental study of a group of preschoolers who play with
fashion dolls (Dittmar et al., 2006); since then Dittmar and her colleagues have published several
research articles. In these articles, the authors state that these toys
12
have a special influence on chil-
dren at a very early age (under seven years old), when children are particularly impressionable and
sensitive to emotionally-laden images, something which is fully in line with the results of the study
6A. KHOLMOGOROVA ET AL.
described above. However, while the influence the Barbie doll exerts declines with age, the dissatis-
faction with one’s body, by contrast, grows, according to H. Dittmar and co-authors. Studies allow
them to conclude that internalization of the thin body image demonstrated by Barbie happens at a
very young age due to identification with it. Then, at the age of about seven, the girls start to distance
themselves from the doll: girls reject them, are aggressive towards them (cut off their hair, etc.) (Ditt-
mar et al., 2006). But the damage is already done: standards of physical beauty have already been
absorbed and are becoming part of the self-concept. By contrast, a fuller body, such as that embodied
by the Emme doll
13
or the girl-doll in our example, evokes revulsion. We were unable to find infor-
mation about similar studies done in Russia
14
and that described above is the first study of this type
carried out on a Russian population of preschool girls, whose data fully corroborates the conclusions
previously drawn by H. Dittmar et al. (2012).
Later on, in adolescence and youth, the internalization of unhealthy standards leads to the distri-
bution, in contemporary culture, of the phenomenon of dissatisfaction with one’s own body. This
phenomenon’s negative consequences for physical and mental health form the subject of a large
number of research studies (Dong-Sik, 2009; Neumark-Sztainer, Paxton, Hannon, Haines, &
Story, 2006; Stice & Shaw, 2002; Wertheim, Koerner, & Paxton, 2001). The pressure relating to
rigid body standards in modern society also promotes the emergence and distribution of such
destructive personality traits as physical perfectionism. This phenomenon only became the object
of close attention of researchers in the last five to seven years (Kholmogorova, 2006; Srivastava,
2009; Tarhanova, 2014; Yang & Stoeber, 2012).
There are several reasons why studies point to the special importance of studying perfectionism
directed at appearance. First of all, this is the area in which a lot of young people demonstrate ten-
dencies toward perfectionistic standards. In addition, it seems that perfectionism in this area is
‘malignant’in its nature and is associated with the most maladapted forms of general perfectionism
as well as with psychological problems (Cain, Bardone-Cone, Abramson, Vohs, & Joiner, 2008;
Haase, Prapavessis, & Owens, 2013; Kholmogorova & Dadeko, 2010; Srivastava, 2009; Yang & Stoe-
ber, 2012). Finally, the identified link to socially prescribed perfectionism indicates that physical per-
fectionism, as opposed to perfectionism in other areas of life, is motivated more by internal than
external social factors (Kholmogorova & Dadeko, 2010; Stoeber & Stoeber, 2009). Research shows
that mass media is the most important factor in the development of physical perfectionism. Inter-
esting data exists concerning the mechanisms by which this influence occurs.
Even though research on physical perfectionism is highly pertinent and practically significant,
until now it has been studied relatively little. In an analysis of foreign and Russian scientific literature,
the authors found an extremely small number of studies on physical perfectionism as a separate
phenomenon. In these studies it was also referred to as ‘appearance perfectionism’(Srivastava,
2009), ‘physical appearance perfectionism’(Yang & Stoeber, 2012) and ‘pathological body perfec-
tionism’(Travova, 2008). To simplify comprehension, however, we will use the term ‘physical per-
fectionism’in all cases.
The first study of this phenomenon known to us consisted of two stages (Srivastava, 2009). The
aim of the first stage was to develop and validate a diagnostic tool for measuring the level of physical
perfectionism. The aim of the second stage was to conduct a correlation study into the link between
the parameters of this tool and a number of psychological phenomena connected with appearance.
The physical perfectionism scale (APPS) developed by the author consists of 10 similar statements,
such as ‘I strive to look perfect at all times’,‘I always have to be in ideal shape’,‘I must achieve the
“perfect look”as often as possible’. The results of the correlation study on a student population show
that physical perfectionism is connected with the desire to be thin, with dissatisfaction with one’s
body, with bulimia symptoms and the desire to seek the help of a plastic surgeon. It is significant
that in a correlation study of the same psychological phenomena with the parameters of general per-
fectionism (MPS), positive correlations were also obtained, but their values were lower and what is
more they did not appear in all age and gender groups. For example, only the scale of socially pre-
scribed perfectionism correlated with symptoms of bulimia, strictly in the female sample. The
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CULTURE AND MENTAL HEALTH 7
authors conclude that physical perfectionism is a more reliable predictor of the phenomena
described above than general perfectionism, and thus must be studied independently.
A collaborative cross-cultural study by British and Chinese researchers (Yang & Stoeber, 2012)
was also dedicated to the development and validation of an original methodology for diagnosing
physical perfectionism. The authors are supporters of the multidimensional model of perfectionism,
which features both positive and negative parameters: ‘maladaptive concern with being evaluated’
(socially-prescribed perfectionism) and ‘a positive desire to achieve’(self-focused perfectionism)
(Bieling, Israeli, & Anthony, 2004; Frost, Marten, Lahart, & Rosenblate, 1990). Based on this
model, they developed a physical appearance perfectionism scale (PAPS), which consists of 12 state-
ments and two scales. The first one is ‘worry about imperfection’. It contains statements like: ‘I often
think about shortcomings of my appearance’,‘I worry about others being critical of my appearance’.
The second scale –‘striving for perfection’–contains statements such as ‘I hope others find me
attractive’,‘I strive for my body shape to be perfect’.
Research into the links between the parameters of this questionnaire with the parameters of other
methods demonstrated that there are significant differences between the two scales. For example, the
‘worry about imperfection’scale had a positive correlation with socially-prescribed perfectionism,
dissatisfaction with one’s body and fear of a negative evaluation of one’s appearance by others, as
well as with controlling behaviour for limiting food intake. At the same time, this scale had a negative
correlation with positive perceptions about appearance. The ‘striving for perfection’scale, for its part,
demonstrated a positive correlation with self-focused perfectionism and behaviour aimed at making
a good impression on others through physical appearance (attractive clothes, hairstyle, and makeup).
The following results were obtained in a correlation analysis of the parameters of the scales of the
questionnaire with perfectionistic self-presentation: both scales correlated with the pattern of
‘demonstrating one’s own achievements and success’, whilst only the ‘worry about imperfection’
scale correlated with the ‘avoidance of demonstrating own failures’pattern. Overall, the authors con-
clude that the ‘worry about imperfection’scale is associated exclusively with negative characteristics,
while the ‘striving for perfection’scale is essentially associated with positive ones.
It should be noted separately that the importance and pertinence of studying physical perfection-
ism is also confirmed by the fact that in 2013 information about this phenomenon was added to the
English-language Wikipedia page on general perfectionism.
In Russia, research into physical perfectionism as a separate phenomenon was initiated under the
leadership of Kholmogorova (Kholmogorova & Dadeko, 2010; Tarkhanova, 2013). In these studies,
‘physical perfectionism’was defined as a system of personal beliefs and attitudes connected with
physical appearance: increased worry about appearance, a striving to meet high standards in relation
to the body and to achieve the best possible results in the battle for the ideal figure (Kholmogorova &
Dadeko, 2010). An original methodology for diagnosing physical perfectionism (‘Physical perfec-
tionism scale’) was developed and validated as part of the related research (Kholmogorova &
Dadeko, 2010). This questionnaire has a mono-dimensional structure and consists of 16 statements
such as: ‘I have always liked the way I look’(inverted question); ‘If I put on even a little bit of weight I
immediately feel it’;‘If the only way to reach the perfect weight would be liposuction, I would do it if I
had the option’;‘I feel uncomfortable if my clothes do not look perfect’;‘I carefully think through
ways of hiding the shortcomings and highlighting the advantages of my figure’.
A number of studies on dissatisfaction with appearance and physical perfectionism as risk factors
for emotional maladaptation in the form of depression and anxiety symptoms were completed on the
basis of this questionnaire on samples of young Russian men and women (Kholmogorova & Dadeko,
2010; Kholmogorova & Tarhanova, 2014; Shalygina & Kholmogorova, 2014);
Tarkhanova and Kholmogorova hypothesized in their study that there are essential differences
between the social development situation of young people from large cities and provincial towns
that leads to a higher level of physical perfectionism and dissatisfaction with the body among the
residents of metropolitan cities (Tarkhanova, 2013). This is furthered by the more intense influence
of the ideology of consumer culture in Russian capitals, where the atmosphere of competition and
8A. KHOLMOGOROVA ET AL.
the cult of success predominate. It is well known that the levels of day-to-day informational load and
its pressure on the inhabitants are also significantly higher in metropolitan cities. In addition to the
commonly available TV and magazines, the internet and aggressive ubiquitous street advertising
have a huge influence on people, with some of it aimed at creating a cult of ideal appearance. As
a result, being attractive is not just fashionable; it becomes essential, because youth and beauty
are strongly associated with success in life and with well-being. In addition, compared with provin-
cial cities, there are many more ways of improving one’s physical appearance in a metropolitan city.
After all, the beauty industry is particularly developed here; there are a lot of gyms, beauty salons, and
aesthetic surgery clinics.
In an empirical study, the authors put forward the hypothesis that the level of dissatisfaction with
one’s own body and the degree of physical perfectionism is significantly higher among young men
and women from metropolitan cities (Moscow and Saint Petersburg) than among their peers from
provincial cities in Russia (Kholmogorova & Tarhanova, 2014). 300 young people aged from 18 to 23
years old were studied. They made up four research groups: young men and women who reside in
metropolitan cities (Moscow and St. Petersburg) and also young men and women who live in pro-
vincial Russian cities (Saransk, Bryansk, Murmansk, Vladimir, Tver’).
The research results supported this hypothesis. Dissatisfaction with one’s own body and the
degree of physical perfectionism was higher –in a statistically significant manner –among young
men and women from metropolitan cities. In a comparative analysis of the groups studied, in
terms of the number of positively answered questions on the physical perfectionism scale (Kholmo-
gorova & Dadeko, 2010), it was revealed that metropolitan residents are generally less satisfied with
their weight and appearance than their peers from provincial towns. They are also more critical
toward the appearances of other people and tend to notice the smallest shortcomings. In addition
young people from metropolitan cities are more prepared to become involved in various types of
activities to improve their bodies: they make more attempts to lose weight, spend more time prepar-
ing before leaving the house and think more carefully about ways of highlighting the advantages and
hiding the shortcomings of their figures. When comparing female groups it becomes clear that
female Moscow and St. Petersburg residents also demonstrate a greater readiness to seek the help
of plastic surgeons than residents of provincial towns.
Thus the results of the study supported the hypothesis put forward and demonstrated that the
levels of general and physical perfectionism are significantly higher among residents of metropolitan
Russian cities. The authors conclude that the social developmental situation is least favourable for
metropolitan youth; macrosocial factors contribute significantly to them forming perfectionistic atti-
tudes toward physical appearance. A close positive correlation was revealed between the parameters
of dissatisfaction with appearance and physical perfectionism. The higher the level of physical per-
fectionism in young men and women, the less they are satisfied with their appearance in general and
with the separate components of their appearance, and the more pronounced their negative attitude
toward their own bodies in various life situations.
The results of the studies completed also revealed that physicalperfectionism and body dissatisfaction
are closely linked to symptoms of depression and anxiety among young people of both genders (Khol-
mogorova & Dadeko, 2010;Kholmogorova&Tarhanova,2014). The data concerning the influence of
family-related factors on the levelof physical perfectionism is worth noting. Based on a regression analy-
sis, it was shown that a high level of communicative dysfunction in the immediate family (high levels of
criticism from the parents, parental inclination to forbid the open expression of emotions, importance of
external well-being, etc.) defines 36% of the dispersion of the ‘physical perfectionism’variable in the
female group, and 25% of the dispersion of this variable in the male group.
The results of the studies analysed demonstrate that there are high levels of body dissatisfaction
and physical perfectionism among modern young people; these levels are closely linked to emotional
ill-being. The data also allows us to conclude that beauty standards which are unrealistic and a
danger to health are formed as early as preschool age and to a significant degree are due to wide-
spread advertising and communication of these standards in the modern information society.
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CULTURE AND MENTAL HEALTH 9
Notes
1. http://vk.comtopic-130246_ - 34 023 members
2. Ryabuhina writes: ‘British doctors found around 400 websites on the internet that promote weight loss that
leads to dystrophy. In addition, there are many chat rooms where teenagers share tips on how to lose “weight
leftovers”.“The Barbie cult: 20% of anorexics die”“AiF. Health”№45 11/11/2010 .
3. See, for example the Kira Anorexic diary
4. Membership of such internet communities increases the risk of developing eating disorders.
5. We were unable to find official statistics for the disease in Russia, but it is possible to indirectly judge the spread
of eating disorders in Russia through certain publications. For example, in St. Petersburg one case of anorexia
nervosa is currently being registered each week. Professor P. Krotin states that nowadays, in St. Petersburg, the
diagnosis of anorexia nervosa makes up 22% of all diagnoses given by psychotherapists, whereas five years ago
this figure was equal to 5%. He also states that ‘more than 30% of teenagers have abnormal eating habits’.http://
ok-inform.ru/obshchestvo/medicine/43344-golodnye-igry-molodykh.html.
6. For example the sites: http://www.barbie.com/;http://www.mattel.com;http://www.my-barbie.ru ;http://
bratzlife.ru/ etc.
7. My-Barbie online store website, which specializes in selling Barbie dolls http://www.my-barbie.ru
8. See, for example, the MGM channel on YouTube, which is so popular among Russian girls.
9. See, for example, L.Berg, (2003), V. Muhina (2006), E.O. Smirnova, E.A. Abdulaeva (2006) and others.
10. In the mid 2000s MGA sold 20–30 million dolls a year http://dollplanet.ru/fashion_dolls/bratz-10/
11. If the Barbie was a live human being, her waist would be 39% smaller that the waist of an anorexic patient [Ditt-
mar Н., 2012]
12. Dittmar and her colleagues subsequently started studying not only the influence of the body images embodied
by modern fashion dolls on the formation of a negative body image in girls, but also the influence of the figures
of muscular heroes on boys.
13. The Emme doll is a project launched in 2002 and approved by the American Dietetic Association as projecting a
more positive body image for girls. The American clothing size of this doll is a 16, while Barbie is a size 2.
14. That said, there exist individual studies looking at other aspects of the interaction of girls with Barbie dolls, see:
M.V. Antonova, L.I. Elkoninova. The features of preschoolers’play with Barbie dolls // Психологическая
наука и образование [Psychological Science and Education]. 2002. №4. pp.38–52; I.V. Glazatova. The influ-
ence of the choice of toy on the emotional state of children of preschool age // Human development in the mod-
ern world: materials from the All-Russian Scientific and Practical Conference /Scientific editors: О.А.
Belobrykina, О.А. Shamshikova. Novosibirsk: Publisher НГПУ [NSPU], 2006. pp. 152–161; K.L. Lidin. On
the question of a psychological examination of toys (using the example of the Barbie doll) // ibid, pp.129–141.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes on contributors
Alla Borisovna Kholmogorova,Doctor of Psychology, Professor of Psychology, Dean of the Faculty of Counselling and
Clinical Psychology, Moscow State University of Psychology and Education (MSUPE), Head of the Laboratory of
Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy at Moscow Research Institute of Psychiatry (since 2015, a subsidiary of the
Federal State financed establishment ‘The State Scientific Centre for Social and Forensic Psychiatry, named after
V.P. Serbsky’of the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation).
E-mail: kholmogorova-2007@yandex.ru
Tarhanova Polina Mikhailovna, Clinical psychologist, PhD in Psychology.
E-mail: polina.tarkhanova@gmail.com
Shalygina Olga Vladimirovna, Psychologist at the non-governmental educational institution ‘Horoshevskaya Progim-
naziya’(horoshkola).
E-mail: gosteva-shalygina@yandex.ru
References
Averett, S., Terrizzi, S., & Wang, Y. (2013). The effect of sorority membership on eating disorders and body mass index
[Electronic resource] // IZA Discussion Paper №7512, 1–21. Retrieved from http://ftp.iza.org/dp7512.pdf
10 A. KHOLMOGOROVA ET AL.
Baudrillard, J. (2006a). The consumer society: Myths and structures.Мoscow: Cultural Revolution. Resbublica, 269с.(in
Russian).
Baudrillard, J. (2006b). Consumer culture. M. Kulturnaya revoluciya. Moscow: Respublika. pp.205–206.
Bieling, P. J., Israeli, A. L., & Anthony, M. M. (2004). Is perfectionism good, bad, or both? Examining models of the
perfectionism construct. Personality and Individual Differences,36, 1373–1385.
Cain, A. S., Bardone-Cone, A. M., Abramson, L. Y., Vohs, K. D., & Joiner, T. E. (2008). Refining the relationships of
perfectionism, self-efficacy, and stress to dieting and binge eating: Examining the appearance, interpersonal, and
academic domains. International Journal of Eating Disorders,41, 713–721.
Cash, T. F., & Pruzinsky, T. (Eds.). (2002). Body image: A handbook of theory, research, and clinical practice. New York:
Guilford.
Dittmar, H. (2009). How do “Body perfect”ideals in the media have a negative impact on body image and behaviors?
Factors and processes related to self and identity [Special Issue: Body Image and Eating Disorders]. Journal of Social
and Clinical Psychology,28,1–8.
Dittmar, H., Halliwell, E., & Ive, S. (2006). Does barbie make girls want to be thin? The effect of experimental exposure
to images of dolls on the body image of 5- to 8-year-old girls.. Developmental Psychology,42(2), 283–292.
Dittmar, Н.(2012). Dolls and action figures. In Thomas F. Cash (Ed.), Encyclopedia of body image and human appear-
ance (pp. 386–391). New York: Elsevier.
Dong-Sik, K. (2009). Body image dissatisfaction as an important contributor to suicidal ideation in Korean adoles-
cents: Gender difference and mediation of parent and peer relationships. Journal of Psychosomatic Research,66
(4), 297–303.
Frost, R. O., Marten, P., Lahart, C., & Rosenblate, R. (1990). The dimensions of perfectionism. Cognitive Therapy and
Research,14, 449–468.
Gordilov, АV. (2011). Virtual communication and the problem of self-regulation of information and communication
of individual behavior in online communities. Material of international scientific-practical conference “Information
and communication space and people,”Moscow. Sociosphere”,15–19.
Haase, A. M., Prapavessis, H., & Owens, R. G. (2013). Domain-specificity in perfectionism: Variations across domains
of life. Personality and Individual Differences,55(6), 711–715.
Kholmogorova, A. B. (2006). Theoretical and empirical basis of integrative psychotherapy for affective spectrum dis-
orders. [Text]: doctorate thesis synopsis / Moscow, 53 pp (in Russian).
Kholmogorova, A. B., & Dadeko, A. A. (2010). Physical perfectionism as a factor of affective spectrum disorders in
modern culture [Electronic resource] // Medical psychology in Russia : online scientific journal. –2010. –№
3. Retrieved from http://www.mprj.ru/archiv_global/2010_3_4/nomer/nomer13.php (in Russian)
Kholmogorova, A. B., & Tarhanova, P. M. (2014). Standards of physical appearance and culture: The role of physical
perfectionism and its consequences to the health of adolescents and youth. Voprosy Psihologii,2,52–65. (in
Russian).
Kuther, T., & McDonald, E. (2004). Early adolescents’experiences with, and views of, Barbie. Adolescence,,39(153),
39–51.
Mararitsa, L. V., Antonova, N. A., & Eritsyan, K. U. (2013). Socialization on the internet [electronic resource] :
Potential threat or resource for the personality. Saint Petersburg Psychological Journal, (5). Retrieved from http://
ojs.spbu.ru/index.php/psy/article/download/47/23 (in Russian)
Neumark-Sztainer, D., Paxton, S. J., Hannon, P. J., Haines, J., & Story, M. (2006). Does body satisfaction matter? Five-
year longitudinal associations between body satisfaction and health behaviors in adolescent females and males.
Journal of Adolescent Health,39(2), 244–251.
Polivy, J., & Herman, C. P. (2002). Causes of eating disorders. Annual Review of Psychology,53, 187–213.
Shalygina, O. V., & Kholmogorova, A. B. (2014). The role of modern dolls in the adoption of unrealistic social stan-
dards of physical attractiveness in preschool girls. Counseling Psychology and Psychotherapy,4,130–154. (in
Russian).
Shalygina, O. V., & Kholmogorova, A. B. (2015). “Body orientation”of the contemporary culture and it’s influence on
the children’s, adolescents’and youth’s health. Counseling Psychology and Psychotherapy,23,36–68. (in Russian).
Soldatova, G. V., & Kropaleva, E. U. (2009). Characteristics of Russian school students as Internet users интернета
[Electronic resource], Children in the information society. 2. Retrieved from http://detionline.com/assets/files/
journal/2/research1_2.pdf (in Russian)
Soldatova, G. V., & Zotova, E. U. (2011). Russian and European school [Electronic resource] : problems of online socia-
lization. Children in the information society, 7. Retrieved from http://detionline.com/assets/files/journal/7/
12research_7.pdf (in Russian)
Srivastava, K. (2009). Conceptualization and development of the appearance perfectionism scale: Preliminary evidence
for validity and utility in a college student population: Thesis for the degree of bachelor of science. Michigan:
University of Michigan, 79 p.
Stice, E., & Shaw, H. E. (2002). Role of body dissatisfaction in the onset and maintenance of eating pathology. Journal
of Psychosomatic Research,53, 985–993.
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CULTURE AND MENTAL HEALTH 11
Stoeber, J., & Stoeber, F. S. (2009). Domains of perfectionism: Prevalence and relationships with perfectionism, gender,
age, and satisfaction with life. Personality and Individual Differences,46, 530–535.
Surnov, K. G., & Tkhostov, A. S. (2005). Influence of modern technologies on the personality development and for-
mation of pathological forms of adaptation: The opposite side of socialization. Psychological Journal,6,16–24. (in
Russian).
Tarhanova, P. M. (2014). Examination of the influence of macro- and micro-social factors on the level of physical per-
fectionism and emotional well-being in youth. Cultural-historical Psychology,1,89–95. (in Russian).
Tarkhanova, P. (2013). Physical perfectionism as a factor of emotional disadaptation among young people. (Phd).
Moscow.
Thompson, J. K. (Ed.). (2004). Handbook of eating disorders and obesity. New York: Wiley.
Tiggermann, M. (2012). Socio cultural perspectives on body image. In T. F. Cash (Ed.), Encyclopedia of body image and
human appearance (pp. 3555–3587). London: Academic Press (Elsevier).
Tolstoy, L. N. (2009). Childhood, boyhood, youth. Moscow: Azbuka.
Travova, V. V. (2008). Ratio of normal and pathological perfectionistic tendencies. Preliminary thoughts . СModern
psychology: from theory to practice: Materials of the XV for undergraduate students, postgraduate students and
young scientists “Lomonosov-2008”.“Psychology”section, 2. Moscow: MSU Publishing. 169–172. (in Russian).
Van Oudenhoven, N. (2010). Newly emerging needs of children: An eploration. Moscow: University book, 200 p.
Voiskunskij, A.E. (2002). Researching the internet in psychology internet and rusian society. (I. Semenov, Ed.). Moscow:
Gandalf. 235–250. (in Russian)
Vygotskii, L. S. (1984). Problemy detskoi (vozrastnoi psikhologii). Sobr.soch. v 6-ti t. T. 4. [The Problem of Age].
Moscow: Pedagogika. 243–432. (in Russian).
Vygotskii, L.S. (2007). Problema vysshikh intellektual’nykh funktsii v sisteme psikhotekhnicheskogo issledovaniya.
[The problem of higher intellectual functions in the system psychotechnical research]. Kul’turno-istoricheskaya psi-
khologiya [Cultural-Historical Psychology], 3, 105–111. (In Russ., abstr. in Engl.). (in Russian).
Wertheim, E. H., Koerner, J., & Paxton, S. J. (2001). Longitudinal predictors of restrictive eating and bulimic tendencies
in three different age groups of adolescent girls. Journal of Youth and Adolescence,30(1), 69–81.
Wulf, N. (2015). The myth about beauty : Stereotypes against women (2nd ed.). Moscow: Alpina non-fiction. 445 p (in
Russian).
Yang, H., & Stoeber, J. (2012). The physical appearance perfectionism scale: Development and preliminary validation.
Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment,34(1), 69–83.
12 A. KHOLMOGOROVA ET AL.
