G.O. Adejumo

EFFECT OF EXPOSURE TO TELEVISION COMMERCIALS ON THE BODY IMAGE AND SELF-ESTEEM OF FEMALE ADOLESCENTS

Introduction: This study investigated the effects of exposure to television commercials and magazines on the perceived body image and self-esteem of female adolescents. Young girls are becoming increasingly aware of their body image through the image of models in advertising, and imagecentered ideals portrayed in the media. Methods: Sixty female secondary school students between the age of 12 and 16 years participated in this experimental study. The study made use of the between-subject design by dividing the sixty participants into two groups of thirty students each for experimental and control categories. This was done using the simple random sampling of odd-even method without replacement. Two validated scales were employed to measure the study variables. The Rosenberg self-esteem scale and the Franzoi’s body image scale with reliability coefficients as high as 0.78 and 0.83 respectively. Results: Two hypotheses were raised and tested. Results show there is a significant difference between exposure to media and female body image (t = 21.82, df = 58, p = 0.05), and self-esteem (t = 18.59, df = 58, p = 0.05). The second hypothesis was also retained. It showed a positive and significant relationship between body image and self-esteem. Conclusion: The study revealed that media exposure has effects on body image and self-esteem of female adolescents. Concern with appearance is not just an aberration of modern western culture because every phase in history has had its own standards of what is and is not beautiful

Self-reported Psychosexual Lifestyles of University Students in South-Western Nigeria: Implication for Professional Counselling☆

Abstract Human sexuality is generally described as the sum total of manner through which people experience and articulate their sexual sensation. It encompasses physiological make-up as well as socio-cultural, psychological and spiritual aspects of life. Considerable researches have been conducted on human sexuality among university students but this paper measures twelve psychosexual constructs among six hundred and eight university students (376 males and 232 females) randomly selected from three universities in South-western, Nigeria. Snell (1997) Multidimensional Sexuality Questionnaire (MSQ), consisting of 12 different psychological constructs related to sexual relationships was used to gather data. One research question and one research hypothesis guided the study. Descriptive statistics of frequency count, mean and t-test statistic were employed to analyze the data. The findings indicated that the participants reported higher mean score of 18.37 for psychosexual constructs of sexual esteem and the lowest mean rating of 10.76 for sexual depression,. Further analysis showed that there were no significant differences on sexual esteem and depression of the participants on gender basis. It is recommended that counsellors should broaden sexual recovery psychotherapeutic intervention programmes that will further enhance psychosexual lifestyles of university students.