Effect of Cultural Priming on Asian American Females' Internalization of Mainstream Beauty Standards
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.47611/jsrhs.v12i4.5722Keywords:
Media Internalization, Beauty Standards, Asian American Female, Generation Z, Cultural Priming, Cultural Cues, Self-esteemAbstract
Westernization and patriarchal values implied in American society may cause young female Asian Americans living in the United States to be pressured to internalize the idealized, mainstream depiction of female beauty. The purpose of this study was to explore the impact of cultural priming on the degree of media internalization. Data were collected by online surveys with questionnaires of self-esteem, ethnic identity, media internalization, and response to cultural cues from Asian American females of ages 15 to 24 on July 28-August 12, 2023. Two versions of the survey were created to incorporate Asian cultural cues in one, and American cultural cues in the other. The 60 respondents were randomly assigned to either version, resulting in 30 respondents for each version. Questionnaire responses of 60 respondents were gathered, and all 60 were analyzed. The collected data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, Pearson's correlation coefficients, t-test, ANOVA, linear regression, and multiple regression. Results showed that the impact of cultural priming on media internalization was statistically not significant, while self-esteem, a distinct factor that was found to have associations with cultural priming and media internalization separately, had a significant negative association with media internalization. Further studies need to compare the self-esteem in women of different minority races in the United States to explore the effects of self-esteem on media internalization across groups of young women with different traditional customs and expectations.
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