Pia Broderick

'What you look like is such a big factor': Girls' own reflections about the appearance culture in an all-girls' school

High school is a key venue for the development and expression of body image concerns in adolescent girls. Researchers have begun to investigate the role of school-based ‘appearance cultures’ in magnifying the body image concerns of students. To date, however, no research has examined girls’ experience as participants within these cultures, and thus the opportunity to learn how girls account for the development and maintenance of these cultures has been missed. In interviews with nine girls attending an all-girls’ school, the existence of a strong ‘appearance culture’ in the school was identified as a major influence on the body image concerns of students. Girls talked about the ways in which appearance-focused conversations, dieting, and weight monitoring occurred as part of the everyday interaction with friends and peers at school. They also identified many ways in which their school attempted to address body image concerns, although these attempts were often portrayed as ineffective, if not counter-productive. These findings suggest that attempts to address the body image concerns of students will need to be sensitive to the lived reality of appearance cultures within schools.

The Psychology of Assisted Reproduction — or Psychology Assisting its Reproduction?

This paper examines the role played by psychology and psychologists in the treatment of infertile people, and focuses especially on issues where donor gametes or embryos are used. Psychology has argued strongly for a “therapeutic injunction” in which people undergoing treatment are urged to talk to others; are advised that it is better to tell a child of the method of his/her conception and of his/her genetic background; and are advised that it is better for donors, recipients, and children to have access to information about one another and to know one another. We question this for several reasons. First, there are no data to support the claim that full disclosure produces better mental and family health than nondisclosure. Second, donors and recipients overwhelmingly prefer information, especially identifying information, to be kept private and confidential. Third, in making this prescription, psychology is “psychologising” a physical problem, assuming psychological problems must exist in infertile people which must be treated. The paper concludes by suggesting that psychology and psychologists have been attempting to reproduce psychology, perhaps at the expense of developing a better understanding of the psychology of reproduction.

Body image concern among Australian adolescent girls: The role of body comparisons with models and peers

This study investigated the potential mediating roles of body comparisons with peers and models in the relationship between the internalization of thinness norms and body image concern. A total of 224 Western Australian girls aged 14-15 completed questionnaires assessing their endorsement of thinness norms, body image concerns, and frequency of body comparisons with peers and with models. Both targets of body comparisons were found to significantly mediate the relationship between the endorsement of thinness norms and body image concern, with body comparison with peers a stronger mediator than comparison with models. These findings show that body comparison with peers, in particular, plays a significant role in the experience of body image concerns among adolescent girls, and should be given a higher profile in programs designed to prevent or reduce body image concern.

The effects of varying planning demands on drawing components of squares and diamonds

The effects of changing the level of complexity of motor planning demands in simple drawing tasks were examined in 5- to 11-year-old children. Square and diamond figure components were used in either figure completion or figure copying tasks graded in terms of the extent of planning demands. Grading of planning demands was achieved by varying the degree of assistance provided in the tasks; i.e., combinations of lines, angles, or junction points were given. General age level differences and overall differential difficulty between square components and diamond components were consistent with results reported previously by the authors (Broderick & Laszlo (1987) Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 43, 44-61). Tasks with low planning demands resulted in less difference between the square and diamond performance than tasks with higher planning demands. At the youngest age level variables other than planning demands may also effect performance.

Donor gametes and embryos: who wants to know what about whom, and why?

Many treatments for infertility require the use of donated gametes or embryos. Arguments have been made that all parties involved (donors, recipients, and children) should have open access to information about one another. The present article reports a survey of attitudes of 77 donors and 327 recipients in the state of Western Australia. Donors and recipients endorsed a register of nonidentifying information, but were less keen on a register of identifying information. They believed that medical personnel should have access to such registers, and that donors and recipients (but not children) should have access to nonidentifying, but not identifying, information. Typically, the sort of information respondents wanted to access pertained to health status and physical characteristics. Overwhelmingly, both donors and recipients saw gamete and embryo donation as more like blood donation than like adoption.

The size illusion: visual and kinaesthetic information in size perception.

Earlier studies have shown the size of kinaesthetically presented two-dimensional movement patterns to be significantly overestimated. Whether this size overestimation is characteristic of the kinaesthetic system alone has not been established. Two experiments are reported which were designed to investigate size judgment made after kinaesthetic and visual pattern presentation and the effect of environmental cues on the perception of movement patterns. In experiment 1 patterns were presented kinaesthetically (experimenter guided hand movements around the outline of the pattern) or in combination with visual information given by a moving light (pinpoint light attached to the stylus which was moved around the pattern); visual and kinaesthetic cues were either congruent or conflicting with each other; and environmental cues were either present or absent. In experiment 2 static visual display was compared with visually traced pattern presentation, again with or without environmental cues. Overall the results showed that, regardless of experimental manipulation, in all cases where the information was given over time the subject perceived the pattern larger than reality. After static visual display, overestimation of size did not occur.

Conceptions and Misconceptions

Infertility and its treatment is a social issue in most Western countries. As many as one couple in seven will have difficulty becoming pregnant when they want to. Medical interventions to assist reproduction have developed rapidly over the last four decades so that it is now possible for many couples to become pregnant when once they would have remained childless. Many such interventions rely on the use of donated sperm, eggs, or embryos. Along with the rapid development of new medical technologies, there is now a sizable industry of counselors working in the area (Burns 1993; Daniels 1993), and legislation and policy to control the fertility industry exist in many states and countries, including Australia (Broderick 2005a, 2005b). Academics have turned their attentions to studies of the stresses experienced by people undergoing medically assisted reproductive technology (MART) procedures (for example, Edelman, Connolly, and Bartlett 1994; Wasser 1994), of the wisdom of telling a child of the circumstances of its conception (for example, Broderick and Walker 1995; Daniels and Taylor 1993; Savage 1995), and of the gender politics involved (for example, Abbey, Andrews, and Halman 1991; Haimes 1993). MART technologies, perhaps especially when they involve donated gametes and embryos, raise many psychological, social, legal, ethical, and political dilemmas. Infertility and the technologies used to overcome it are public issues as well as private concerns.

Challenges to the reproduction of misunderstanding

C. and P. Lorbach, Joanna Rose, Jenny Blood, and Ken Daniels each criticise our earlier paper on the psychology of reproduction. Although making different criticisms, they are alike in misunderstanding the aims of our paper and the arguments and analyses we were offering. In our reply here, we reiterate the fundamental points of our earlier paper, and we articulate what we were not saying. We also address directly some key points made by our critics.

THE COPYING OF UPRIGHT AND TILTED SQUARES BY SWAZI CHILDREN AND ADULTS

Children aged 5-12, and adults from a rural area of Swaziland, along with urban based adults were assessed on their copying ability for a square orientated in two ways, squarely and obliquely; and under five different conditions. The children and rural adults experienced significant difficulties in copying the obliquely orientated shape, while the urban adults produced the shape without difficulty, although they all easily perceived the shapes and programmed the required movements. The results indicate that the process of planning the fine movements for drawing is learned, improves with age, and practice is necessary. Where planning is more complex, in the production and combination of oblique lines, it appears that the lack of practice in Swazi rural schools, and generally little requirement to use the skills, results in a delay of those particular drawing abilities.