Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, Vol. 27, No. 9, 2008, pp. 995-1020

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SANDERSON ET AL.

CULTURE AND PERCEIVED DISCREPANCY

WHO FEELS DISCREPANT AND HOW DOES FEELING DISCREPANT MATTER? EXAMINING THE PRESENCE AND CONSEQUENCES OF FEELING DISCREPANT FROM PERSONAL AND SOCIAL NORMS RELATED TO THINNESS IN AMERICAN AND BRITISH HIGH SCHOOL GIRLS

CATHERINE A. SANDERSONAmherst College

JENNY M. WALLIER AND JAN E. STOCKDALELondon School of Economics

DARREN J. A. YOPYKUniversity of Massachusetts-Amherst

This research examines whether both American and British girls feel discrepant from social and personal norms related to thinness and the consequences of such discrepancy on rates of disordered eating. High school girls in the United States (N = 198) and Great Britain (N = 74) completed measures of their own eating and body-related attitudes and behaviors as well as their perceptions of other girls’ at-titudes and behaviors. As predicted, participants in both countries believed that, compared to themselves, other girls are thinner, have thinner ideal bodies, and exercise more for aesthetic reasons (e.g., weight loss, attractiveness, toning). Girls in both countries believed that their ideal body shapes are smaller than their cur-rent body shapes. In addition, both British and American girls who believed their current !gure was smaller than that of other girls, and those who believed their ideal !gure was smaller than their current !gure, showed greater drive for thin-ness. Finally, actual-ideal self-discrepancy was associated with more symptoms of bulimia in British girls, but not in American girls. Discussion focuses on the theoretical and applied implications of these !ndings.

This research was conducted as part of the second author’s Masters Thesis under the direction of the third author. Jenny Wallier is now at the Institute of Psychiatry, Kings College London and Institut Mutualiste Montsouris (Paris, France). Darren Yopyk is now at Merrimack College.

Correspondence should be addressed to Catherine A. Sanderson, Department of Psychology, Box 2236, Amherst College, Amherst, MA 01002-5000. E-mail: casanderson@amherst.edu.

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One of the most fundamental and prevailing contributions within the field of social psychology is that of the power of social norms (Miller & Prentice, 1996). People rely heavily on social norms to un-derstand what is acceptable in their specific reference group, and the perception of such norms exerts a powerful influence on atti-tudes and behavior. For example, Connor-Greene and colleagues found that women who perceived their university campus as plac-ing a stronger emphasis on appearance were more likely to be pre-occupied by their weight (Connor-Greene, Streigel-Moore, & Cro-nan, 1994). People look so consistently to the social norms of their group in part because group memberships impact our social identi-ties (Tajfel & Turner, 1986; Turner, 1982, 1985), and in part because deviating from social norms can lead to negative consequences (Schachter, 1951). Crandall’s (1988) study on the effects of social norms on eating behavior in two sororities, for example, found that women who did not change their behavior to accommodate the prescribed norm regarding binge eating had fewer friends and less status in the sorority.

Although social norms do influence individuals’ attitudes and be-havior, people can make errors in their perceptions of such norms, which can have substantial consequences (Miller & Prentice, 1996). For example, Sanderson and colleagues found that college wom-en often misperceived eating and exercise norms, believing that other women weighed less, had a thinner ideal body shape, and exercised more for attractiveness and weight loss than they actu-ally did (Sanderson, Darley, & Messinger, 2002). Thus, each woman believed that her classmates were more comfortable with these at-titudes and behaviors than she was and perceived herself as deviant from the norms. Moreover, women who believed that compared to other women they were heavier and preferred a smaller body size, demonstrated more signs of eating disorders, including bingeing and purging, drive for thinness and body dissatisfaction. Feeling discrepant from eating and thinness norms (even when this per-ceived discrepancy is inaccurate) can thereby have substantial con-sequences on eating behavior and body image.

Although being and feeling discrepant from the valued social norms of one’s community can have consequences, so can feeling discrepant from one’s own personal norms. As described by self-discrepancy theory, feeling that one’s actual self (meaning the attri-butes that one believes he or she currently possesses) is discrepant

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from one’s ideal self (meaning the attributes that one would ide-ally like to possess) is also associated with negative states (Higgins, 1987). In line with this view, women with such an actual-ideal self-discrepancy experience higher rates of body dissatisfaction and more frequent disordered eating behavior (Landa & Bybee, 2007; Strauman, Vookles, Berenstein, Chaiken, & Higgins, 1991).

The present research expands on this prior work in several ways. First, we examine whether high school girls in both the United States and Great Britain feel discrepant from their peers in terms of their endorsement of the thinness norm, whether they experience an actual-ideal self-discrepancy in terms of body shape, and whether feeling discrepant from social and/or personal norms is associated with negative consequences (e.g., disordered eating). Second, we will examine whether culture moderates the presence and size of such discrepancies as well as the consequences of feeling discrepant from both social and personal norms.

FACTORS LEADING TO ERRORS IN PERCEIVING SOCIAL NORMS

Although people are typically highly motivated to learn and follow the attitudes and behaviors that are characteristic of their group, several factors can lead people to make errors in their perceptions of these norms (Miller & Prentice, 1996). First, the perception of a group’s ethos is often derived from the most vocal members of a group (Miller & McFarland, 1991; Miller & Prentice, 1994), who do not necessarily constitute the majority opinion of the group. Klofas and Toch (1982), for example, found that prison guards and prison-ers with the most hard-line positions were likely to define them-selves as spokespersons for the group, which in turn created the illusion that all prison guards and prisoners held more hard-line positions than they actually did. Similarly, Brown, Glazer, Waxer, and Geis (1972) found that long-term users of marijuana were more than twice as likely to talk about marijuana use than former users or non-users. A powerful and vocal minority can create a public façade, and its existence can continue because of the mistaken belief of popular support.

Second, because people want to present themselves as fitting in with group norms, public expressions of attitudes and beliefs are

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likely to reflect those of the norm, but may not reflect their private beliefs (Bradburn & Sudman, 1979; Noelle-Neumann, 1984). This divergence between public expression and private thought is es-pecially likely if one’s beliefs are unpopular or unaccepted within one’s group. For example, although the majority of the American people did not support the Prohibition on alcohol in the 1920s, people were reluctant to express their disapproval because they be-lieved that everyone else supported the cause and thus, the prohi-bition remained intact (Miller & Prentice, 1994). Similarly, a recent study found that people who hold a minority opinion express that opinion less quickly than those with a majority opinion (Bassili, 2003). Similarly, Voraver and Miller (1997) found that people who are around high-status individuals are much more likely to agree with the stated opinion or belief. In sum, because public expression determines our knowledge about other people’s attitudes, errors in norm perception occur when public expression does not correspond to internal beliefs.

Finally, because people who deviate from valued social norms threaten the stability of these norms, those who deviate from such norms often experience negative consequences (Miller, Monin, & Prentice, 2000). Abrams, Marques, Brown, and Henson (2000), for example, found that deviant group members were seen as fitting in less well than normative group members. Given the negative per-sonal and social consequences of deviating from the group, indi-viduals who believe that their personal attitudes are not in line with the behaviors and attitudes of the group with which they identify feel pressure to bring their attitudes and those of the group closer together.

THE POWER AND PREVALENCE OF THE THINNESS NORM

The Western societal ideal of thinness in women has received con-siderable attention by researchers as well as in the popular press. Images of women in the media have become increasingly thinner than the average woman during the past half-century (Garner, Gar-finkel, Schwartz, & Thompson, 1980; Thompson & Heinberg, 1999; Wiseman, Gray, Mosimann, & Ahrens, 1992). Models are frequently more than 20% underweight, exceeding the 15% underweight di-agnostic weight criteria for anorexia (Owen & Laurel-Seller, 2000;

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Spitzer, Henderson, & Zivian, 1999). Below-average weight female characters are more common in television programs than they are in daily life (Fouts & Burggraf, 1999, 2000), with one study finding that 69% of female characters on television are thin, compared to only 17% of male characters (Silverstein, Perdue, Peterson, & Kelly, 1986). Moreover, given the technological advances in magazine dis-tribution, movies, television and the internet, images of very thin models, actresses, and music stars are more common and more fre-quently viewed (Berel & Irving, 1998; Levine & Smolak, 1998).

In turn, we believe that this widespread emphasis on thinness in women in the media leads girls to both see extreme thinness as more accepted and normative than it actually is and to form an ide-al shape that is discrepant from their actual shape. First, given the salience of the thinness norm in Western culture, girls are likely to be motivated to engage in self-presentational strategies that are in line with this norm (Sanderson et al., 2002). Because people often identify eating lightly with femininity and attractiveness, women are likely to modify their public eating behavior in order to appear more feminine (Mori, Chaiken, & Pliner, 1987; Pliner & Chaiken, 1990). Girls may therefore believe that other girls in their school ex-ercise frequently or eat very little because their classmates publicly discuss these behaviors while remaining quiet about behaviors they perceive to be less desirable (Miller & Prentice, 1994). However, these self-presentational effects can make discerning between private and public eating and exercise behavior difficult and therefore make un-derstanding school thinness norms difficult. Specifically, the use of such self-presentation strategies may mislead observers into think-ing that public behavior is a true representation of a person’s be-havior because people often fail to distinguish between public and private behavior. In turn, merely observing people’s public behav-ior can provide an incomplete and inaccurate picture of people’s private behavior. Because girls are forced to depend on the public behavior of other girls to assess what behaviors are normative, self-presentational effects stemming from recognition of society’s thin female ideal can lead to misperceptions of school thinness norms.

Second, because girls cannot know the attitudes and behavior of every girl in their school, they rely on a few more salient girls to pro-vide information on thinness norms. Unfortunately, the most salient girls in regard to thinness norms may not be those girls who best represent the school population, but rather those girls who best cor-

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respond to societal and media ideals of thinness (Sanderson et al., 2002). Even if these girls are in the minority in terms of thinness, eat-ing, and exercise, other girls may generalize their appearance and behavior to the larger school population, whether or not they accu-rately represent school norms. Thus, it is possible that girls may mis-interpret school thinness norms because the most prominent girls in their school are those girls who best correspond to the media ideals of feminine beauty. Through these processes, girls may misperceive the social norms of their schools. Unfortunately, misperception of school thinness norms may have serious consequences: Because people will think, feel, behave, and define themselves in terms of group norms (Tajfel & Turner, 1986), students who believe that their classmates adhere more strongly to societal thinness norms than they do, may increase the emphasis they place on thinness.

In addition, both the salience of very thin women in the media, and the resulting self-presentational effects and prominence of the girls in school who are striving to meet these ideals, can lead girls to see very thin images of women as the ideal (Dittmar & How-ard, 2004; Halliwell & Dittmar, 2004). In turn, girls are likely to see their own actual shape as larger than that of the ideal presented in the media, and to internalize this (largely unattainable) ideal. Most importantly, feeling discrepant from broader media images of the female ideal as well as one’s own ideal are both associated with pat-terns of disordered eating. Women who see a larger gap between their own attractiveness and body shape and images representing the ideal of attractiveness presented in the media show more weight concerns (Posavac & Posavac, 2002). Similarly, and as described previously, greater actual-ideal self-discrepancy on body shape is associated with higher rates of disordered eating in both college women (Strauman et al., 1991) and older adult women (Landa & Bybee, 2007).

CULTURAL DIFFERENCES IN THE THINNESS NORM

Considerable research indicates that rates of disordered eating vary considerably across different cultures, with women in Western cul-tures showing higher levels of disordered eating and poor body image than women in non-Western cultures (Cogan, Bhalla, Sefa-Dedeh, & Rothblum, 1996; Franko & Herrera, 1997; Lake, Staiger,

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& Glowinski, 2000). Although considerable research has examined cultural differences in body dissatisfaction, drive for thinness, and rates of disordered eating, such work has not, to our knowledge, ex-amined whether the misperception of the social thinness norm seen in American female college students is present across other Western cultures, or alternatively is particular to some aspect of American culture. In many ways the American and British cultures are very similar, and thus one might expect that British girls would show similar patterns to American girls in terms of both the presence and consequences of feeling discrepant from the thinness norm. Both cultures are exposed to relatively similar media images of women, and research with both American and British samples reveals that feeling discrepant from media ideals of thinness is associated with higher rates of disordered eating (Dittmar & Howard, 2004; Hal-liwell & Dittmar, 2004; Posavac & Posavac, 2002). In addition, na-tional statistics from both cultures reveal relatively similar rates of obesity, overweight, and disordered eating in teenage girls (Hed-ley, Ogden, Johnson, Carroll, Curtin, & Flegal, 2004; Ogden, Flegal, Carroll, & Johnson, 2002; United Kingdom Health Statistics 2005, 2007). Thus, both American and British high school girls are likely to believe that other girls are thinner than they themselves are, and to have ideal body shapes that are smaller than their actual body shapes. In turn, girls who perceive such discrepancies from social and personal norms may show higher rates of disordered eating.

On the other hand, some work on the association between person-ality traits and disordered eating in American and British students suggests that culture may moderate the effect of personality on be-havior (Shifren, Furnham, & Bauserman, 1998). Specifically, both American and British individuals who scored high on instrumental traits report lower levels of drive for thinness and body dissatis-faction, suggesting that personality variables influence behavior in similar ways across cultures. The predictors of symptoms of buli-mia, however, differed as a function of country, with high instru-mental traits predicting fewer symptoms of bulimia in Americans, but instrumental traits having no association with symptoms of bu-limia in the British. This research therefore provides some evidence that individual difference factors have a different impact on disor-dered eating for people in different cultures even when the cultures are very similar in many ways.

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OVERVIEW

This research extends prior work examining the presence and conse-quences of feeling discrepant from both social and personal norms related to thinness in two ways. First, we examine whether high school girls in both the United States and Great Britain feel discrep-ant from their peers in terms of their endorsement of the thinness norm, whether they experience an actual-ideal self-discrepancy in terms of body shape, and whether feeling discrepant from social and/or personal norms is associated with rates of disordered eat-ing. Second, we will examine whether culture moderates the pres-ence and size of such discrepancies as well as the consequences of feeling discrepant from both social and personal thinness norms.

METHODS

PARTICIPANTS

Two hundred and seventy-two female students from two private, all-girls secondary schools in the United States (N = 198) and one private, all-girls secondary school in England (N = 74) served as participants in this research. All three schools were very similar in many ways: they were all academically competitive, meaning that most graduates attend highly selective universities, and private, meaning that students pay tuition fees to attend. All three schools were single-sex.

These samples were similar in many ways, including age, t(265) < 1; American: M = 16.59, SD = 1.55; British: M = 16.59, SD = 1.11 and weight, t(251) = 1.66, p = .10; American: M = 129.81 pounds, SD = 19.10; British: M = 125.13, SD = 21.68. However, British girls were somewhat taller than American girls, t(257) = 2.35, p = .02; M = 65.26 inches, SD = 2.69 versus M = 64.40, SD = 2.60, which resulted in a significant difference in Body Mass Index, t(248) = 2.48, p = .001; American: M = 22.03, SD = 2.98; British: M = 20.57, SD = 2.80. There was no difference between the two samples in rate of drive for thin-ness, t(258) < 1, M = .89 in the United States versus M = 0.91 in the United Kingdom, with both samples showing the full range of scores (0 to 3) and relatively similar levels of skewness (0.56 in the United States and 0.79 in the United Kingdom). However, British girls did

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have higher rates of bulimia, t(261) = -3.22, p = .001; M = 0.46 in the United Kingdom versus M = 0.24 in the United States, and reported a larger range of scores (2.86 in the United Kingdom versus 2.43 in the United States), although skewness was similar in both cultures (2.87 in the United States, 2.04 in the United Kingdom).

PROCEDURE

Participants were recruited by their teachers during academic class-es in the British school and during meetings of all the students in a particular grade year (all the students in the senior class) in the American schools. Teachers in all three schools were given a script to read to the students, requesting their participation, but also ex-plaining the purpose of the project, the voluntary nature of partici-pation and the confidentiality of their responses. In the two Ameri-can schools, 85.14% and 83.29% of students approached agreed to participate. In the British school, 54.31% of students participated, a smaller percentage than at the other schools, but still a majority of students approached. Although this difference in rates of partici-pation between the schools was unexpected, the American schools had much longer traditions of participating in research studies, and thus teachers were likely more familiar with facilitating par-ticipation. Students interested in participating were then given 30 minutes to complete the questionnaires under the teacher’s super-vision. Surveys were then collected by the teacher and placed in a sealed envelope to be given to the researcher.

MEASURES

Eating Disorder Inventory. Two subscales of the 64-item Eating Dis-order Inventory (EDI) were used to evaluate symptoms of anorexia and bulimia (Garner, Olmstead, & Polivy, 1983). These subscales were Drive for Thinness (six items; e.g., “I am terrified of gaining weight,” = .81) and Bulimia (seven items; e.g., “I have gone on eating binges where I felt that I could not stop,” = .79). When com-pleting the scales, participants rate whether each item is applied to themselves on a 6-point scale (1 = never to 6 = always); however, the scale is re-coded so that answers of 1 to 3 (never to sometimes) are

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scored as “0,” 4 (“often”) is scored as “1,” 5 (“usually”) is scored as “2,” and 6 (“always”) is scored as “3.” These scores are then summed, with higher scores indicating greater frequency of symptoms.

Pictorial Body Image Scale. The Pictorial Body Image Scale (PBIS) was used to evaluate ratings of girls’ perceptions of their own body size and ideal body size, as well as the actual and ideal body size of the typical girl at their school. The scale consists of nine drawings of a female figure ranging ordinally from very thin to very heavy (Stunkard, Sorenson, & Schlusinger, 1983). Each figure corresponds to a number from 1 to 9 (1 = thinnest to 9 = heaviest). Participants then noted the figure that best approximated their own figure and the figure they find ideal, as well as the figure they thought best ap-proximated the figure of the typical girl at their school and the ideal figure of the typical girl at their school.

Reasons for Exercise Inventory–Self. Participants’ motivations for ex-ercising were assessed using the 24-item Reasons for Exercise Inven-tory (REI; Silberstein, Streigel-Moore, & Rodin, 1988). The inventory consists of seven sub-scales: weight control (e.g., “to lose weight,” = .80), fitness (e.g., “to improve my strength,” = .79), health (e.g., “to increase my resistance to illness and disease,” = .77), body tone (e.g., “to alter a specific area of my body,” = .70), physical at-tractiveness (e.g., “to improve my appearance,” = .82), mood (e.g., “to cope with stress, anxiety,” = .80), and enjoyment (e.g., “to have fun,” = .78). Each item was answered on a 1 to 7 scale (1 = not at all important to 7 = extremely important).

Reasons for Exercise Inventory–Other. The Reasons for Exercise In-ventory has also been used to assess participants’ perceptions of the others’ motivations for exercise (Sanderson et al., 2002). In the present research, participants completed the survey a second time to assess their perceptions of the reasons that the average girl in their school exercises. These items again represented seven general domains: weight control ( = .73), fitness ( = .59), health ( = .49), body tone ( = .27), physical attractiveness ( = .34), mood ( = .75), and enjoyment ( = .72). Each item was answered on a 1 to 7 scale (1 = not at all important to 7 = extremely important).

Demographic Information. Participants completed a series of back-ground questions, including questions on age, class year and home-town. They were also asked to provide information on their own

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height and weight, as well as to provide estimates of the height and weight of the average girl at their school. American students report-ed height and weight in inches and pounds. While some British stu-dents used these measurements, others used stones as an alterna-tive for weight, and others used metric measurements (centimeters and kilograms). All measurements were converted to inches and pounds before data analysis.

RESULTS

A series of analyses was conducted to test whether both British and American girls feel discrepant from social as well as person-al norms related to thinness, the consequences of feeling discrep-ant from both types of norms, and whether culture moderates the presence, direction, and consequences of such discrepancies. First, analyses were conducted comparing girls’ reports of their percep-tions of their own current and ideal body and reasons for exercise to what they believed other girls in their school would report for these same measures. Next, analyses were conducted to examine whether girls experienced an actual-ideal self-discrepancy in terms of body shape. Finally, analyses were conducted to determine whether feel-ing discrepant from social as well as personal norms related to thin-ness was associated with rates of disordered eating. All analyses also examined whether culture moderated these effects. Because there were significant differences in BMI between the two samples, all analyses controlled for BMI; however, the results were virtually identical even in the absence of this control. Table 1 provides the means and standard deviations for all measures.

Question 1: Do Girls in Both Countries Feel Discrepant From the Thinness Norm, and Does Culture Moderate the Nature of this Discrepancy?A series of 2 (Target: self versus other) X 2 (Nationality: American versus British) repeated measures analyses of covariance (ANCO-VAs) were conducted to test whether girls differed in their self ver-sus perceived other attitudes and behaviors related to body shape and exercise, controlling for BMI. The within-subjects variable was Target (each girl’s own attitude or behavior on a particular dimen-sion of exercise or body image versus her perception of her peer’s

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attitude and behavior) with Nationality as a between-subjects vari-able.

We first conducted analyses to test whether participants perceived a self versus other difference on current and ideal body shape es-timates. The analysis comparing participants’ perceptions of their current figures to their perceptions of their peers’ current figures revealed significant main effects of Target, F(1, 245) = 152.18, p < .0001, 2 = .38, and Nationality, F(1, 2 45) = 28.38, p = .0001, 2 = .10. These findings revealed that both British and American girls per-ceived their classmates as having smaller, thinner figures than they themselves did, and that British girls had larger perceived actual shapes than American girls (3.80 versus 3.32). This analysis revealed no significant effect of the Target X Nationality interaction, F(1, 2 45) < 1. Similarly, the second analysis, comparing participants’ percep-tions of their ideal figure to their perceptions of their peers’ ideal figure, also produced a significant main effect of Target, F(1, 2 43) = 13.12, p < .0001, 2 = .05, again suggesting that both British and American girls saw their peers as desiring smaller body shapes than they themselves did. This analysis revealed no significant effect of Nationality, F(1, 2 43) = 1.93, p = .17, or the Target X Nationality in-teraction, F(1, 2 45) < 1).

The next set of analyses examined whether British and Ameri-can girls differed in their perceived self versus other discrepancies on external reasons for exercise (tone, weight loss, and physical attractiveness). The analysis predicting weight control revealed a significant main effect for Target, F(1, 2 31) = 6.53, p < .01, 2 = .03, suggesting that British and American girls believed that their peers were more likely to exercise to control their weight than they them-selves were. There were no significant main effects of Nationality, F(1, 2 31) < 1) or the Target X Nationality interaction, F(1, 2 31) < 1. The analysis predicting tone revealed a significant main effect for Target, F(1, 2 28) = 6.61, p < .01, 2 = .03, revealing that British and American girls believed that their classmates were more likely to exercise for tone than they themselves were. Once again, there were no significant main effects of Nationality, F(1, 2 28) < 1) or the Tar-get X Nationality interaction, F(1, 2 28) < 1. The analysis predicting physical attractiveness revealed no significant main effects of Tar-get, F(1, 2 29) = 2.55, p = .11, Nationality, F(1, 2 29) < 1, or the Target X Nationality interaction, F(1, 2 29) < 1. Thus, the results suggested that both American and British girls believed that their peers’ exer-

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TABLE 1. Adjusted Means and Standard Deviations for All Measures

American Students British Students

Measure Mean SD Mean SD

Eating Disorders Inventorya

Drive for thinness 0.87 0.07 1.02 0.10

Bulimia 0.23 0.04 0.51 0.06

Body Size Estimatesb

Own actual size 3.29 0.05 3.35 0.07

Own ideal size 2.55 0.06 2.62 0.10

Average girl’s actual size 3.35 0.07 3.78 0.12

Average girl’s ideal size 2.24 0.06 2.41 0.10

Reasons for Exercise – Selfc

Internal

Socialization 4.14 0.12 4.64 0.21

Mood 4.63 0.12 4.60 0.20

Fitness 5.41 0.10 4.87 0.17

Health 5.31 0.10 5.41 0.17

External

Weight control 5.03 0.11 5.05 0.18

Attractiveness 4.83 0.12 4.64 0.21

Body tone 4.50 0.13 4.71 0.22

Reasons for Exercise – Otherc

Internal

Socialization 4.24 0.11 4.50 0.18

Mood 4.11 0.09 4.11 0.15

Fitness 4.99 0.08 4.70 0.13

Health 5.11 0.07 5.20 0.12

External

Weight control 5.69 0.08 5.84 0.13

Attractiveness 4.92 0.08 4.83 0.13

Body tone 4.91 0.08 4.99 0.14

Note. N = 272. All means controlled for BMI. ameasured on a 1 to 6 scale (1 = never to 6 = al-ways). bmeasured on a 1 to 9 scale (1 = thinnest to 9 = heaviest). cmeasured on a 1 to 7 scale (1 = not at all important to 7 = extremely important).

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cise was more motivated by external reasons, such as a desire for tone and weight control, than their own exercise.

Finally, we examined whether British and American girls differed in their perceived self versus other discrepancies on internal reasons for exercise (socialization, health, mood, and fitness). The analysis predicting fitness revealed significant main effects of Target, F(1, 2 27) = 5.29, p < .02, 2 = .02, and Nationality, F(1, 2 27) = 8.17, p = .005,

2 = .04. These findings reveal that both British and American girls believed that their classmates were less likely to exercise for fitness than they themselves were, and that American girls endorsed this motivation more than British girls (5.20 versus 4.88). There was no effect of the Target X Nationality interaction on motivation to ex-ercise for fitness, F(1, 2 27) = 1.41, p = .24. Similarly, the analysis predicting mood revealed a significant main effect for Target, F(1, 2 30) = 4.95, p < .03, 2 = .02, revealing that British and American girls believed that their classmates were less likely to exercise for mood than they themselves were. There was no effect of Nationality, F(1, 2 30) < 1, or the Target X Nationality interaction on motivation to ex-ercise for mood, F(1, 2 30) < 1. The analysis predicting motivation to exercise for health revealed a significant main effect of Target, F(1, 2 30) = 5.29, p < .02, 2 = .02, revealing that British and American girls believed that their classmates were less likely to exercise for health than they themselves were. There was no effect of Nationality, F(1, 2 30) < 1, or the Target X Nationality interaction on motivation to exercise for health, F(1, 2 30) < 1. The analysis predicting enjoyment revealed only a significant main effect of Nationality, F(1, 2 32) = 3.85, p = .05, 2 = .02, indicating that British girls were more mo-tivated to exercise for enjoyment than were American girls. There was no effect of Target, F(1, 2 32) < 1) or the Target X Nationality interaction on motivation to exercise for enjoyment, F(1, 2 32) < 1. In sum, both British and American girls tend to see others as less fo-cused on exercising for internal reasons (fitness, mood, health) than they themselves are.

Question 2: Do Girls in Both Countries Experience an Actual-Ideal Self-Discrepancy in Terms of Body Shape, and Does Culture Moderate the Nature of this Discrepancy?Next, we examined whether both American and British girls saw their ideal body shape as discrepant from their current body shape.

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A paired sample t-test combining girls in both countries revealed that girls saw their current body shape as larger than their ideal body shape, t(266) = 13.87, p = .0001; Ms = 3.45 for current shape and 2.56 for ideal body shape.

We then calculated ideal-actual self-discrepancy scores by sub-tracting participants’ ideal body shape from their reported actual body shape. In this case, negative discrepancy scores indicated that participants’ ideal body shape was larger than their current shape, and positive discrepancy scores indicated that participants’ ideal body shape was smaller than their current body shape. An indepen-dent samples t-test was conducted to determine whether the size of the actual-ideal discrepancy differed as a function of culture. This analysis revealed no significant effect of culture on size of the dis-crepancy, t(265) = -1.36, p = .17; Ms = 0.84 for United States and 1.03 for Great Britain. In sum, both American and British girls see their current figure as larger than their ideal figure, and the magnitude of this discrepancy does not differ by culture.

Question 3: How Is Perceived Discrepancy From Social and/or Personal Thinness Norms Associated With Eating Disordered Behavior, and Does Nationality Moderate the Impact of Such Discrepancies?Next, we conducted a series of linear regression analyses to exam-ine the relative impact of both perceived discrepancy from social norms and perceived discrepancy from personal ideals in terms of actual body size and ideal body size on rates of disordered eating, and whether nationality influenced the consequences of both types of discrepancies. We first calculated a set of perceived discrepancy from social norms scores by subtracting a participant’s belief about the average student’s attitude or behavior on both actual and ideal body shape from the participant’s own attitude or behavior on the same dimension (e.g., participants’ ratings of how large they be-lieved their peers wanted to be were subtracted from their own rat-ings of ideal body size). Thus, positive discrepancy scores indicated that participants believed that they were (or wanted to be) larger than their peers, whereas negative discrepancy scores indicated that participants believed that they were (or wanted to be) smaller than their peers.

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We then ran hierarchical linear regressions predicting drive for thinness and bulimia. All variables were first standardized by com-puting Z-scores in order to reduce multicollinearity between the terms representing main effects and interactions. We computed interaction terms representing the perceived discrepancy from so-cial norms (current, ideal) score X nationality (dummy-coded, with United States = 0, United Kingdom = 1) interactions as well as the personal ideal discrepancy score X nationality (dummy-coded, with United States = 0, United Kingdom = 1) interaction. Therefore BMI and nationality (dummy-coded) were entered into Step 1 of the re-gression, the perceived discrepancy from social norms (current and ideal body shape) and personal ideals discrepancy scores were en-tered into Step 2, and the three nationality X discrepancy interaction terms were entered into Step 3.

First, an analysis was conducted to determine whether feeling discrepant from social and/or personal norms was associated with rates of drive for thinness. This analysis revealed a significant effect of BMI (with greater BMI predicting more drive for thinness), as well as significant effects of both perceived discrepancy from social norms on current figure and discrepancy from personal ideals (see Table 2). (There were no significant effects of any of the nation X dis-crepancy interactions.) These findings indicated that girls who be-lieved their current figure was smaller than that of other girls, and those who believed their ideal figure was smaller than their current figure, showed more symptoms of disordered eating. Interestingly, these findings suggest that both types of discrepancy (perceived discrepancy from social norms, discrepancy from personal ideals) are associated with drive for thinness, although in opposite direc-tions. Specifically, girls who feel discrepant from social norms—in that their own current figure is smaller than that of other girls—show more rates of drive for thinness, as do those who feel discrep-ant from their own personal ideals for thinness—in that their own ideal figure is smaller than that of their current figure

Second, an analysis was conducted to determine whether feeling discrepant from personal and/or social norms was associated with symptoms of bulimia. This analysis revealed significant main ef-fects of nation (with British girls having more symptoms of bulimia than American girls) and BMI (with girls with larger BMIs showing increased symptoms of bulimia). However, these main effects were qualified by a significant discrepancy from personal ideals X nation

CULTURE AND PERCEIVED DISCREPANCY 1011

interaction (see Table 3). Moreover, the inclusion of these interac-tions added significantly to the power of the equation. To interpret the nature of this interaction, we ran regression analyses separately by nation. The analysis using only the American sample revealed no significant effect of personal ideals discrepancy on symptoms of bulimia ( = .01, p = .91). However, the analysis using the British sample revealed a significant effect of discrepancy from personal ideals on symptoms of bulimia ( = .57, p = .005), with girls who feel their current body shape is larger than their ideal body shape showing more frequent symptoms of bulimia. These findings there-fore reveal that discrepancy from personal ideals is associated with rates of bulimia, whereas perceived discrepancy from social norms is not.

DISCUSSION

This research examined whether teenage girls in the United States and Britain feel discrepant from social and personal thinness norms, the consequences of such discrepancies on disordered eating, and whether culture moderates these effects. First, and as predicted,

TABLE 2. Regression Analysis Predicting Drive for Thinness from Discrepancy from Social and Personal Norms and the Discrepancy X Nation Interaction

Step 1 Step 2 Step 3

BMI .05 .01 .01

Nation .15** -.04 -.06

Perceived discrepancy on current !gure -.19* -.21*

Perceived discrepancy on ideal !gure .07 .11

Self actual-ideal discrepancy .46*** .45***

Nation X perceived discrepancy on current !gure .13

Nation X perceived discrepancy on ideal !gure -.25

Nation X self actual-ideal discrepancy .06

R2 at each step .03 .18 .18

F 3.72* 11.09*** 7.55***

df 2,230 5,227 8,224

Fchange 3.87* 15.41*** 1.53

Note. Standardized regression weights. Nation was coded as United States = 0 and United King-dom = 1. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

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both American and British girls felt discrepant from the thinness norm in their schools. Girls in both countries perceived themselves as larger than their classmates, and holding an ideal body shape that was larger than that of other girls. Further, both American and British girls believed that their peers’ exercise was more motivated by external reasons, such as a desire for toning and weight control, than their own exercise. They also believed that their peers’ exercise was less motivated by internal reasons, such as fitness, health, and mood, than their own exercise. These findings therefore suggest that both American and British girls felt discrepant from the thinness norms in their schools, believing that their classmates were thin-ner and wanted to be thinner than they were, and exercised more for external reasons, and less for internal reasons, than they did. Second, and also as predicted, both American and British girls saw their current figure as larger than their ideal figure, and the mag-nitude of this discrepancy did not differ by culture. These findings extend prior work by showing that high school girls in the United Kingdom as well as in the United States feel discrepant from both social and personal norms related to thinness.

This research also examined whether girls in both the United States and the United Kingdom experienced negative consequences

TABLE 3. Regression Analysis Predicting Bulimia from Discrepancy from Social and Personal Norms and the Discrepancy X Nation Interaction

Step 1 Step 2 Step 3

BMI .04 .02 .02

Nation .28*** .24*** .19**

Perceived discrepancy on current !gure -.02 .02

Perceived discrepancy on ideal !gure .08 .06

Self actual-ideal discrepancy .11* .01

Nation X perceived discrepancy on current !gure -.10

Nation X perceived discrepancy on ideal !gure -.07

Nation X self actual-ideal discrepancy .30**

R2 at each step .09 .12 .18

F 11.87*** 6.05*** 6.07***

df 2,235 5,232 8,299

Fchange 11.87*** 2.07 5.50***

Note. Standardized regression weights. Nation was coded as United States = 0 and United Kingdom = 1. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

CULTURE AND PERCEIVED DISCREPANCY 1013

from feeling discrepant from social norms as well as personal ide-als. The analysis predicting drive for thinness revealed an associa-tion between both types of discrepancy and drive for thinness: girls in both countries who believed their current figure was smaller than that of other girls (perceived discrepancy from social norms), and those who believed their ideal figure was smaller than their current figure (discrepancy from personal ideals), reported greater drive for thinness. Thus, both feeling discrepant from others in terms of cur-rent body shape and from one’s own ideal body shape were associ-ated with more symptoms of anorexia (e.g., fear of gaining weight, preoccupation with thinness). This finding suggests that girls with a high drive for thinness perceive themselves to be thinner than their peers, but are still unsatisfied regarding their personal ideals for thinness. Although it has long been suggested that individu-als with anorexia see themselves as heavier than they are (Bruch, 1973; Cooper, 2005; Fairburn, Cooper, & Shafran, 2003; Garfinkel & Garner, 1982), our findings suggest that girls with greater drive for thinness also see themselves as thinner than their peers. Girls with a high drive for thinness may in fact be accurate in their perceptions of themselves as thinner than their peers; however, they would still like to be thinner, perhaps due to unrealistically thin personal ideals for weight.

On the other hand, culture moderated the effect of discrepancy on symptoms of bulimia: for British girls, greater discrepancy from personal ideals was associated with frequency of symptoms of bu-limia, with girls who felt their current body shape was larger than their ideal body shape showing more symptoms of bulimia, but self-discrepancy was not associated with symptoms of bulimia for American girls. This research therefore suggests that at least in West-ern cultures, perceiving one’s self as discrepant from one’s peers, as well as discrepant from one’s own ideal, in terms of the thinness norm is universal in adolescents girls. Both of these discrepancies are associated with drive for thinness (albeit in opposite directions). However, culture moderates the association between self-discrep-ancy and bulimia, with British girls, but not Americans, who feel their ideal shape is smaller than their actual shape reporting more symptoms of bulimia.

Although our finding that culture moderates the association be-tween self-discrepancy and rates of bulimia was unexpected, it is in line with that in prior research (Shifren et al., 1998). As described

1014 SANDERSON ET AL.

previously, high instrumental traits are associated with lower lev-els of bulimia in American college females but are not associated with levels of bulimia in British college females. Furthermore, some evidence suggests that whereas anorexia appears to be largely un-influenced by cultural factors (meaning that cultural factors are not “sufficient or necessary” to influence rates of anorexia), bulimia is a “culture-bound syndrome” (Keel & Klump, 2003). Specifically, epi-demiological data, cross-cultural comparisons, and historical pat-terns all indicate that bulimia is largely influenced by cultural fac-tors. In turn, the influence of personal and social factors (including self-other and self-ideal discrepancies) on rates of bulimia may vary from one culture to another, even when both cultures are “West-ern.” Thus, our findings point to the importance of examining not only cross-cultural differences in attitudes and behaviors related to the thinness norm, but also how the link between attitudes and be-havior may differ even in two very similar cultures.

LIMITATIONS AND FUTURE RESEARCH

Although this research extends prior work on the presence and con-sequences of feeling discrepant from both social and personal thin-ness norms by examining these issues in high school girls across two Western cultures, several limitations of this research should be acknowledged. One limitation of this research is the different response rates in American versus British girls (with over 80% of American girls participating compared to only 54% of British girls participating). Participation in this research was voluntary for girls in both countries, and because all the girls were informed that the survey questions pertained to eating and exercise, girls suffering from eating disorders might have chosen not to participate. There-fore, it is impossible to know whether the “actual” norms reported represent a true average or not. This issue is particularly important to note given the difference in rates of participation across cultures.

Although this variation in response rates is a limitation of this re-search, several factors make us more confident that the differences observed in this research represent true differences as a function of culture. First, the majority of girls approached in both cultures did participate in this research. Second, a majority of girls in both sam-ples were in the “normal-weight” BMI category (84% in the Ameri-

CULTURE AND PERCEIVED DISCREPANCY 1015

can sample, 73% in the British sample), with relatively few girls in the overweight BMI category (11% of American girls, 8% of British girls). Although these samples did differ in terms of BMI, with Brit-ish girls having smaller BMIs than American girls (and a greater percentage of British girls than American girls were in the “under-weight” BMI category), we controlled for BMI in all analyses, and thus the effects we find emerge above and beyond any effects of BMI. Finally, there were no differences between these samples in mean rates of drive for thinness, and although British girls in our sample did report more symptoms of bulimia than American girls, our findings on the link between self-discrepancy and symptoms of bulimia emerge above and beyond the main effects of nation.

Another limitation of this research is that the sample was limited to girls attending private, all-girls schools. Although these schools were chosen precisely because they met this criteria, some have challenged the traditional belief that eating disorders are over-rep-resented in these types of populations (Smolak & Striegel-Moore, 2001). Therefore, future research should examine girls attending a large variety of schools, including coeducational schools and public schools existing in many different communities, in order to examine whether perceptions of social and/or personal thinness norms ex-ist and are associated with symptoms of eating disorders in other types of schools, or if these findings are specific to private all-girls schools. For example, recent research reveals that women who at-tend an all-women’s college are less likely to feel discrepant from the campus thinness norm than those attending a coeducational col-lege (Sanderson, Nintzel, Rancourt, & Yopyk, 2007).

Third, the data relied entirely on self-report, and hence it is cer-tainly possible that participants attempted to provide particular types of responses. For example, participants may have presented themselves as less motivated to exercise for external reasons than their peers. Although this type of bias could potentially explain the self-other discrepancies found in this research, we believe this ex-planation for our results is unlikely for several reasons. First, be-cause the surveys were entirely anonymous, the students had no reason to believe they might benefit in any way from presenting themselves well. In this study, the participants never even met the researchers. Second, although it is possible to imagine that the self-other differences found on motivations for exercise or ideal body type result from self-presentational effects, it is more difficult to ex-

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plain findings on current body shape this way (i.e., why would girls want the researcher to believe that they had a larger body shape than other girls do, or that their current body shape was larger than their ideal body shape?). In addition, our data on individuals’ own and perceived attitudes and behaviors of others was collected in a particular order (e.g., participants rated their own attitudes and behaviors first and then those of their peers later on), and this effect of order could potentially impact participants’ responses. However, a brief pilot test in a college student sample in which order of mea-sures was counterbalanced revealed no significant effects of order on any of the measures, and thus we are relatively confident that order effects did not impact our results (Sanderson et al., 2007).

Finally, our finding that feelings of discrepancy from social and personal thinness norms are associated with disordered eating are based only on a demonstration of correlation, and therefore do not provide evidence for causation. It is therefore entirely possible that a third factor, such as self-esteem or depression, caused women to both feel discrepant from the thinness norm and to develop symp-toms of disordered eating. Future research should examine addi-tional factors that may be associated with perceived discrepancy and/or disordered eating, and should follow participants over time to see whether perceived discrepancy from valued norms at one point in time predicts rates of disordered eating later on.

CONCLUSIONS

In sum, this research replicates and extends prior research on the presence and power of social norms in several distinct ways, and thereby makes valuable contributions to social and clinical psychol-ogy. First, this study demonstrates that both American and British high school girls feel discrepant from their peers in terms of the thin-ness norm, including their actual and ideal body shape as well as motivations to exercise. Second, and also as predicted, both Ameri-can and British girls see their current figure as larger than their ideal figure, and the magnitude of this discrepancy does not differ by culture. These findings extend prior work by demonstrating that high school girls in the United States as well as Great Britain feel discrepant from social and personal norms related to thinness.

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Second, this study is the first to our knowledge to examine whether culture moderates the consequences of feeling discrep-ant from social as well as personal thinness norms. Our findings reveal that both feeling discrepant from others in terms of current body shape and from one’s own ideal body shape were associated with increased symptoms of anorexia (e.g., fear of gaining weight, preoccupation with thinness) in both cultures. However, culture moderated the effect of discrepancy on symptoms of bulimia: for British girls, greater actual-ideal self-discrepancy was associated with frequency of symptoms of bulimia, with girls who feel their current body shape is larger than their ideal body shape showing more symptoms of bulimia, but self-discrepancy was not associated with symptoms of bulimia for American girls. These findings speak to the importance of examining the relationship between attitudes and behaviors across even similar cultures to determine the extent to which attitudes and behaviors can be linked.

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