Body image: A cognitive self-schema construct?

Body image has been a useful construct for understanding eating disorders. In that capacity, body image has been defined in many ways: One concept of body image is as an internalized view of one's appearance that drives behavior and influences information processing. This cognitive schema definition of body image was tested in a series of studies. Other recent studies have investigated cognitive processes with body image information, but the, have focused on weight-related body image. A combination of Higgins self-discrepancy theory and Markus' self-schema theory were used to describe a modem interpretation of body image as an internalized self-representation Both of these theories predict specific information processing consequences of an organized cognitive representation. In turn, these consequences confirm the existence of that representation. Several studies were conducted to test a specific schema-like view of body image. In Study I body image schema variables were correlated with traditional measures of body image. In Study 2 subjects exposed to schema relevant contents showed information processing consequences consistent with self-representation theory. Finally, in Study 3 instructional set was shown to modify the schema activation effect. These effects give evidence of body image schema and yield limited information about the nature of that representation.