The experiment was conducted in rural Nicaragua – a region called the Mosquito coast. The place was not chosen by chance: the fact that there is no electricity and the only source of supply for instruments which serve as solar panels, which is only enough for the bulb. Now the government lays the lines, so while the inhabitants of the villages do not have the TV and Internet, came a team of scientists from the University of neuchâtel (Switzerland) under the leadership of Jean-Luc Euchre, reports vesti.ru.
To work the researchers randomly selected 80 volunteers – men and women aged 16 to 78 years. First, they were asked to describe the options of a beautiful female body: the professionals helped them with computer programs to model perfect figure.
Then participants were divided into two groups. They were shown catalogs of women’s clothing: the first half saw 72 photos skinny girls standard (for us) the appearance of the model, and the second group was considered by 72 the picture of models “plus size”, that is full.
It is important to note that the images were given to the participants in pairs. From each pair they had to pick the most attractive photos (that is, people laid the idea that both apriori beautiful, the question is – what is more beautiful). The time allotted for viewing, was exactly 15 minutes.
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After this, the team asked volunteers to re-describe the ideal female body, and found that they changed their views just a quarter of an hour. Participants from the first group modeled more lean compared with the initial figures, and the participants of the second group, by contrast, increased its ideal in size.
Euchre notes that it is unclear how long you can last such an effect. However, given the fact that most people this exposure will be continually, nothing surprising in the fact that the effect becomes long lasting. And formed new ideals of beauty.
According to the authors of the study, it is very important that on such psychological impact know parents of teenagers, as well as experts from the ministries of education and health – this will help a little to reduce the occurrence of eating disorders.
“We don’t want to demonize TV – there’s nothing wrong with that, especially when it informs the people, warns of storm threats or helps to study foreign languages. We were just talking about certain risks,” concludes euchre.
