Socioculturally constructed prescriptions for femininity and female sexuality define attractiveness and desirability of a woman as contingent upon her appearance and, especially, upon a thin body shape and low body weight (Hesse-Biber, 1996). In Western cultures, such standards for femininity are pervasively reflected and reinforced through the mass media with relentless images of idealized female physiques that have become progressively leaner over the past few decades (Botta, 1999; Groesz, Levine, & Murnen, 2002).
Given that the cultural ideal for female beauty has implications for one's attractiveness to the other sex, girls often believe that success in heterosexual dating is dependent upon their body shape. Studies have documented a strong association between girls' interest in heterosocial popularity and their concern with appearance and weight (Lieberman, Gauvin, Bukowski, & White, 2001; Simmons & Blyth, 1987). As adolescent girls mature, they become more aware of their bodies in terms of sexual attractiveness and attribute greater importance to their attractiveness than do boys. Consequently, girls experience greater concern about physical features that symbolize sexual attractiveness than do boys (Davies & Furnham, 1986).
The importance of physical appearance appears to be especially salient for early adolescents as heterosocial involvement forms. Younger adolescents appear to have different reasons for dating than do older adolescents; they give more weight to a potential dating partner's superficial features (e.g., looks, fashionable clothing) and approval by others than do older adolescents (Roscoe, Diana, & Brooks, 1987). Maccoby (1998, p. 212) wrote that "Adolescent girls are perfectly aware of the importance of physical attractiveness in the eyes of the other sex, and many become intensely preoccupied with their hairdos, their complexions, their clothes, and especially with controlling their weight."
In addition, having a boyfriend, or even pursuing a romantic interest, in middle school enhances girls' popularity with peers. Girls consider being in love to be socially desirable because it is a way to prove their popularity with boys and, accordingly, improve their popularity status among their female peers at an age when being popular is especially important to their self-esteem (Simon, Elder, & Evans, 1992). If being popular is contingent upon having a boyfriend, and having a boyfriend is contingent upon attractiveness, early adolescent girls, as they begin to interact with boys, may increase the importance of thinness and attractiveness for self-worth at a time when their bodies are growing proportionally larger as a consequence of puberty.
Previous research indicates that early dating and the inclusion of boys in the peer group are related to body image disturbance. Simmons and Blyth (1987) suggested that there is a strong relation between girls' interest in the other sex, their popularity, and their concern with weight and appearance. In a middle-school sample, girls who had started to date in the past year were found to engage in more weight management than did girls who had not yet started to date (Levine, Smolak, Moodey, & Shuman, 1994).
Similarly, Cauffman and Steinberg (1996) found that cross-sex involvement predicted higher scores on an assessment of eating-disordered behavior in a community sample of 12-13-year-old girls. One of their important findings was an interaction between dating and menarcheal status in the prediction of eating-disordered behavior, which indicates that the effect of heterosocial dating on eating disturbance is moderated by the experience of menarche (Cauffman & Steinberg, 1996).
Not all girls who date or who experience increased contact with boys, however, develop body image disturbance. The cognitions and beliefs that girls hold about themselves and dating may be an important factor in the way girls experience their bodies. Understanding not only early adolescent girls' behavior in relationships with the other sex, but also how the rules of such behavior, or scripts, are defined during early adolescence may elucidate how cross-sex relationships influence adolescent girls' concerns about weight and physical appearance.
Social scripts are socioculturally defined cognitive models, or schemas, that individuals use to organize their experiences in the social domain and to form expectations and evaluations pertaining to social interactions (Ginsburg, 1988). According to Simon and Gagnon's (1986) sexual script theory, traditional gender roles for dating are typically acquired during childhood and adolescence (Simon & Gagnon, 1986). Gender role violations have implications for interpersonal evaluations. For example, women who eat smaller meals are perceived more positively than are women who eat larger meals (Basow & Kobrynowicz, 1993). Similarly, a woman is judged as more culpable for a rape if she deviates from her gender role by initiating physical contact on a date (Muehlenhard & MacNaughton, 1988).
Research suggests that stereotyped or traditional feminine and masculine gender roles tend to characterize scripts pertaining to courtship. In a study of single men and women between the ages of 18 and 22, Rose and Frieze (1993) examined the presence and content of dating scripts by asking both male and female participants to list, in sequence, the actions that would occur on both an actual and a hypothetical first date. Analysis of these dating scripts revealed that traditional gender roles, including masculine- and feminine-stereotyped behaviors, were prevalent in both types of dates and that such gender roles are more prominent in earlier stages of dating, particularly for younger people (Rose & Frieze, 1993).
Adolescent girls can develop scripts about dating and sexuality even before engaging in such activities. Connolly, Craig, Goldberg, and Pepler (1999) found that fifth-grade girls have elaborate ideas about romantic relationships, even if they have not yet started dating. Middle-school girls have established social norms of romantic love regardless of dating status, and they consider norm violations "serious" (Simon et al., 1992).
Not only might girls possess dating scripts before personally engaging in dating, but there is also evidence that early adolescents may be especially susceptible to cultural scripts concerning romantic relationships. Researchers have noted that gender roles become increasingly sex-typed with pubertal maturation (Laursen & Jensen-Campbell, 1999; Worell & Todd, 1996). Early adolescents' representations of romantic partners and relationships may be more gender-stereotyped than are older adolescents' representations due to their lack of personal experience with cross-sex relationships (Laursen & Jensen-Campbell, 1999).
Laursen and Jensen-Campbell (1999) proposed that younger adolescents tend to rely more on socioculturally defined scripts of dating than do older adolescents because (1) they are not yet physically ready to engage in romantic and/or sexual relationships; (2) parental restrictions, laws, religion, or access to transportation may limit younger adolescents' abilities to meet and remain in contact with a romantic partner; and (3) cognitive limitations of early adolescence, such as egocentrism and concrete thought, may make the establishment of a mature interdependent relationship difficult at this developmental stage. As a result, early adolescents often rely on sociocultural influences to shape their ideas of romantic interactions.
The fact that girls appear to have ideas about dating and romantic relationships before they participate in the corresponding behavior underscores the need to understand how heterosocial scripts, in addition to heterosocial behavior, influence weight concerns in young adolescent girls. Peripubertal girls, therefore, represent an ideal population to study. Their bodies are maturing with pubertal development. Furthermore, girls in this age group place great importance on their appearance. Finally, they usually lack experience with cross-sex interactions. Little is known about the association of girls' body image and their (predating experience) ideas about themselves in relation to boys and dating.
In the current study, we evaluated perceptions of cross-sex interactions and gender roles using dating scripts. We hypothesized that girls who adhere to gender stereotypes in their dating scripts (e.g., concern about appearance, placing themselves in a passive role) will express greater weight concerns than will girls who do not adhere to gender stereotypes in their dating scripts. The purpose of this study was to examine the association between perceptions (rather than the more frequently studied behaviors) of cross-sex interactions and weight concerns in young girls.
METHOD
