Many Skeptics, Daniel Loxton and Massimo Pigliucci (So you think you’re a skeptic, don’t you?) come to mind, have discussed the need to restrict one’s public discussions in the name of Skepticism to topics within one’s area of expertise. In the absence of such expertise, we should only convey to the public a scientific consensus, if one exists. So how is a non-scientist or someone working in a different field supposed to know whether a scientific consensus exists and/or what that consensus is?

Well, that is what I had initially intended to write about today. I am afraid this post goes a little off-track, but it still covers important ground.

This post began as a set of corrections to some of the misleading statements in a recent post by Rebecca Watson in which she points out what she believes is wrong with Ben Radford’s use of an article to support his argument that images of thin women in media do not “encourage” eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa. A friend alerted me to this post, knowing that I participated in a discussion on Facebook on the matter.

In her post, Rebecca accuses Ben of cherry-picking and quoting out of context. In a response to Rebecca , Ben defends himself quite well regarding the accusations that he misrepresented the authors (there were two), but I think that there is a lot missing from the discussion that is important and, in fact, this is shaping up to be a great example of why organized skepticism is needed and why more working scientists should get involved.

First, I share Rebecca’s concern that readers will assume that Botta’s findings support Ben’s claim. Ben writes,

Rebecca is assuming that the quotes were selected as representing the conclusions of those particular studies from which they were cited. I made no such claim.

This is true, but Rebecca assumed what most laypersons are likely to assume. It is far too easy to mislead when discussing complex topics such as this one. Evidence to support one’s assertions is difficult, too, when the assertion is that a claim is untrue. I think that Ben’s argument would have been better served by a more detailed discussion of the complexity of the issue and, perhaps, a quote from a recent review of the literature. Those are difficult to come by, but they provide the “big picture” view to which he referred.

Quoting from the introductions of research reports as Ben did is never a good idea, in my opinion, because it is hearsay. However, it is also problematic when people assume that a researcher’s conclusion can support an argument; it can’t. What counts as evidence is a finding.

For example, what prompted me to participate in the Facebook conversation was Rebecca’s comment:

Study after study shows that straight women and gay men develop eating disorders because our society tells them that they must be thin and pretty in order to attract a man (eg: [link to study by Siever]), and that attracting a man should be their #1 goal in life.

The study to which she linked found correlations among disordered eating, body dissatisfaction, the importance placed on physical attractiveness, and sexual orientation by gender. How that was translated into a causal chain involving societal influences and personal goals is quite alarming, but the paper itself provides some clues. The discussion is longer than any other section of the paper, less than parsimonious, and somewhat speculative. This is one of the reasons that researchers cite and discuss findings, not the conclusions other scientists draw.

As I explained to Rebecca,

Correlation does not equal cause.

Causal conclusions are extremely difficult to draw when you cannot randomly assign subjects to conditions and you cannot randomly assign people to be a straight women or gay men. It takes massive amounts of converging evidence from a variety of studies which eliminate rival hypotheses.

So to say that “straight women and gay men develop eating disorders because our society tells them [anything]” is a very bold statement that is not supported by the evidence. It is certainly not supported by the study to which you linked.

But the confirmation bias leads people to follow their current beliefs and demand to be proven wrong. For example, Rebecca ended her post with,

In the Facebook thread, I genuinely wanted to see what evidence actually supported the idea that the link between media and body image is a myth, but I got nothing from Radford or anyone observing the thread. So, I’m forced to continue to side with what appears to be the consensus opinion: the media’s portrayal of the thin ideal most likely negatively impacts the body image of those who process those images poorly.

First, the “who process those images poorly” part is a new assertion and one that reveals her understanding (or lack of understanding) of the findings. What does it mean to “process images poorly” anyway? She initially wrote, “processing them the wrong way”. Is there are “right way” and a “wrong way”? Botta’s variable of “image processing” involves whether the individual questions the weight of characters as realistic, whether they believe they are realistic, and whether they compare themselves to the characters. There’s no right or wrong here.

What’s more important is her comment that she wanted evidence that the claim is untrue. As I explained to Rebecca on Facebook, that’s not how skepticism works. The burden of evidence is on those making the claim, not those refuting it.

This post is becoming much longer than I’d intended, so I will skip criticism of Posavac’s article and Rebecca’s misrepresentation of the findings. Instead I’d like to discuss the Botta article as it seems to be at the center of this battle. My interpretation of it is quite different from Rebecca’s.

Some background that I found interesting: Botta is not a psychologist, but a professor of communications. Now, expertise can come from many places. Formal education in an area is not a guarantee that one is an expert (although, given no other information, it is much more likely that someone with a PhD in a given area knows that area well than someone without a PhD in that area). Likewise, one can gain expertise through years informal study and practice. My point, though, is that we should not assume that Botta is an expert on eating disorders.

What is more telling about this particular article is the journal in which it was published: the Journal of Communication. It is not published in the psychological literature where psychologists are likely to see and criticize it. A communications journal is not an inappropriate venue for this article, however, because it is not about eating disorders.

This 11 year old study is about body image.

In fact, Botta used the EDI (Eating Disorder Inventory), a well-established, valid, reliable inventory of disordered eating. However, she chose to use only those sub-scales related to body image disturbance, thus making generalization to disordered eating impossible. She did include a measure of “bulimic behaviors”. It’s really very puzzling. I cannot think of an explanation for this, but one would not be relevant. What is relevant: she did not measure disordered eating with the exception of “bulimic behaviors” and references to other eating disorders as a conclusion to this study would be a GROSS overgeneralization.

There are many, many studies regarding both immediate and long-term effects of media exposure on body image and the findings are not consistent, particularly those examining television viewing. Of course, the quality, methodology, and generalizability of those studies are not consistent, either. As always, null findings are likely to be underreported.

There is no scientific consensus that “ideal thin” media is a direct causal factor in body dissatisfaction. Skepticism of any claim to this effect is certainly warranted.

This area of research is fraught with methodological problems similar to the study of acupuncture and psychotherapy. Body image measures rely on self-report and studies involving media imagery make hypotheses obvious to the participants. What’s more, most studies involve short experiments from which generalizations about real-world effects are extremely difficult.

What the massive body of literature on body image suggests: person variables (characteristics of individuals) such as self-esteem (Jarry & Kossert, 2007), attachment orientation (Greenwood & Pietromonaco, 2004), neuroticism (Daily & Buunk, 2009), and even other components of personality (Roberts & Good, 2010) have direct effects on body image and/or mediate/moderate the relationship between media and body image. In other words, any relationship which exists between media exposure and body image is complex and, at the very least, indirect.

But that is not even what Ben was talking about in his original piece, nor is it what Rebecca started to discuss (given the title of her post). The topic was the question of whether the “popular view” that exposure to images of thin women promotes eating disorders is myth.

Even a surface treatment of that question has me scratching my head a bit given the nearly equally accepted “popular view” that there is an epidemic of obesity in this country.

While body image is highly correlated with eating disorders – it is even one of the diagnostic criteria – there is no evidence that poor body image, or even the desire to be thin, causes eating disorders. Stating that eating disorders are a direct result of wanting to be thin is a lot like saying that obsessive-compulsive disorder is the result of wanting to be organized or clean. Assuming a causal link exists, the direction of cause could easily be the opposite of what people think.

But let’s assume that what we’re really talking about is body image and not eating disorders. Do Botta’s findings really refute Ben’s assertions? Given that he did not discuss the study in detail, I am not sure if Ben knows, but let’s take a look.

Botta’s study is a complex analysis of a number of self-report measures which involves a large number of statistical tests. As such, some significant relationships are likely to occur by chance and it is important to consider the specific hypotheses when interpreting them. I’ve noted where Botta reported significant relationships that I believe should be considered with caution. That said, here is a list of what she found:

Factors in whether participants endorsed a thin ideal

What did NOT predict endorsement of a thin ideal:

• total television exposure
• exposure to “thin dramas” [shows like Melrose Place and Beverly Hills, 90210 – did I mention this study was more than decade old?]
• the extent to which participants reported questioning characters’ bodies when watching television

What DID predict endorsement of a thin ideal:

• the extent to which participants compared themselves to the characters
• the extent to which participants viewed the characters as realistic

Factors in body dissatisfaction

What did NOT predict body dissatisfaction:

• total television exposure
• exposure to “thin dramas”
• the extent to which participants reported questioning characters’ bodies when watching television
• the extent to which participants viewed the characters as realistic

What DID predict body dissatisfaction:

• Body Mass Index
• endorsement of the thin ideal
• the extent to which participants compared themselves to the characters

Botta also reported a significant interaction of endorsement of a thin ideal and total television exposure, but with a p-value of .03. Given the large number of tests produced in this kind of analysis, it pays to be a little more conservative and consider only those less than .01 as significant. Likewise, she reported that ethnicity predicted body dissatisfaction, however, she only reports the p-value as less than .05.

Factors in drive for thinness

What did NOT predict drive for thinness:

• total television exposure
• exposure to “thin dramas”
• the extent to which participants reported questioning characters’ bodies when watching television

What DID predict drive for thinness:

• Body Mass Index
• endorsement of the thin ideal
• the extent to which participants compared themselves to the characters

Again, Botta also reported that viewing the characters as realistic was related to drive for thinness, but with a p-value of less than .05.

Factors in bulimic “action tendencies”

What did NOT predict bulimic tendencies:

• total television exposure

What DID predict bulimic tendencies:

• Body Mass Index
• endorsement of the thin ideal
• the extent to which participants compared themselves to the characters

Again, Botta also reported that exposure to “thin dramas” predicted bulimic tendencies, but not in the direction you might think. The more they reported being exposed to “thin dramas”, the LESS they reported engaging in bulimic behaviors. Regardless, with a p-value of less than .05, I don’t believe it needs to be explained as anything more than an odd finding. In addition, there was an interaction of thin ideal endorsement with the questioning of characters that was difficult to fully interpret or explain.

So, do Botta’s findings support the claim that media images cause eating disorders?

Not. At. All.

Do they suggest that media images cause eating disorders?

Nope.

Do they suggest that media images cause body dissatisfaction?

Again, nope.

Do they suggest that media images teach women that thin is best?

No.

What do her findings suggest?

The amount of media exposure, even specifically to thin characters, is not directly related to whether women think that thin is best, body dissatisfaction, drive for thinness, or bulimic tendencies.

If her findings are similar to those of other researchers (and they are), they actually kinda support Ben’s assertion [we’re still in the “what if we were talking about body image” state].

What Botta’s findings also suggest: Women who compare themselves to characters on TV are more likely to think that “thin is best” than women who do not compare themselves to those characters. Also, thin ideal endorsement and current BMI are related to body dissatisfaction (not a surprise), drive for thinness, and bulimic behaviors.

So, it seems to me that what these findings tell us, beyond “media is not the problem”, is that women who are unhappy with their bodies engage in behaviors which are likely to make them even more unhappy. They have warped views of what is ideal and compare themselves to people who, in their judgment, fit that view. How this equates to “every word of it disagrees with Radford’s assertion that media images have no relationship to body image” I don’t know.

I think it is plain, though, that the issue is complex and so is the literature about it. It is fairly easy for the average human to view this kind of literature as supporting their current view of the world. It is also human to defend that view, even when it is not supported, and to ignore explanations of why they should be skeptical. That’s one of the reasons we need Skeptics (like Ben Radford).

Some References

Botta, R. (1999). Television images and adolescent girls’ body image disturbance Journal of Communication, 49 (2), 22-41 DOI: 10.1111/j.1460-2466.1999.tb02791.x

Dailey, S.E., & Buunk, A.P. (2009). Female body dissatisfaction after exposure to overweight and thin media images: The role of body mass index and neuroticism Personality and Individual Differences, 47 (1), 47-51 : 10.1016/j.paid.2009.01.044

Greenwood, D.N., & Pietromonaco, P.R. (2004). The interplay among attachment orientation, idealized media images of women, and body dissatisfaction: A social psychological analysis in The psychology of entertainment media: Blurring the lines between entertainment and persuasion. Shrum, L. J. (Ed.), 291-308 Other: 2003-88226-016

Jarry JL, & Kossert AL (2007). Self-esteem threat combined with exposure to thin media images leads to body image compensatory self-enhancement. Body image, 4 (1), 39-50 PMID: 18089250

Roberts, A., & Good, E. (2010). Media images and female body dissatisfaction: The moderating effects of the Five-Factor traits Eating Behaviors, 11 (4), 211-216 DOI: 10.1016/j.eatbeh.2010.04.002

Siever, M. (1994). Sexual orientation and gender as factors in socioculturally acquired vulnerability to body dissatisfaction and eating disorders. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 62 (2), 252-260 DOI: 10.1037//0022-006X.62.2.252

In my mini-review of The Amazing Meeting 8 I mentioned that there were two very dark spots in an otherwise amazing (sometimes the word just fits) weekend.

I was not ready to discuss these in detail, but when I stumbled over this blog post by Blag Hag Jen McCreight, I felt that at least one should be discussed and I would like to do so through the filter of one of the best talks of the weekend, given by Massimo Pigliucci.

McCreight addresses the question of sexism, saying:

The one annoying thing I saw was the perpetuation of the Sexy vs. Smart binary in talks.

I saw none of this in talks. She gives two examples: Michael Shermer’s talk included a Los Angeles County Fair commercial from a series which has been shown for several years now.

This series is meant to portray a stereotype of geography, not the attractiveness (or the gender; they could have easily used the dumb surfer boy image) of the actors. I can understand this getting past much of the audience. Those of us who live in southern California and have seen the entire series likely take it for granted.

That said, the video seemed to have little to do with the rest of his talk and seemed a bit too “look at these dumb people”; I cringed myself when I saw it. So this is probably worthy of discussion, but I do not think it is a strong example of associating appearance with intelligence.

McCreight also accuses SkepDoc Harriet Hall of sexism:

Whenever she mentioned Jenny McCarthy in her talk as an example of someone saying something stupid (which Jenny McCarthy certainly does often), she would include a picture of her bending over in a bikini or some other scantily clad outfit. Why was this effective? Why not use a photo of Jenny McCarthy in a suit?

Why is it sexist for Harriet Hall to show Jenny McCarthy, a former model and Playboy bunny, in a swimsuit rather than something more modest? If McCarthy were, say, a cashier by trade, the image of her in a cashier’s smock would have been just as appropriate, no?

The purpose of the images was to show that frightened parents will favor the message of someone entirely unqualified to give medical advice over their MD. McCarthy is qualified to have her picture taken and did so “scantily clad” for years.

McCreight also repeated something central to her own talk (which I am not ready to review in its entirety):

The stereotype goes that women can sexy/attractive/beautiful and stupid/ditsy/unscientific, or they can be smart/witty/scientific and frumpy/plain/ugly. This myth annoys the hell out of me, especially because it’s so common.

This is where I put on my “Massimo” glasses and discuss expertise.

Media stereotypes are not “myths”. In fact, they do not necessarily reflect what individuals in society actually believe. These definitions are important, especially when one’s argument relies on them. When you make statements about one thing (media portrayals), but you are really talking about something else (behaviors and attitudes), you need to prepared to cite sources which clearly show that these are interchangeable; the distinction matters.

The truth is that attractive persons are more likely to be associated with an occupation that is held in high regard, including scientist, than less attractive persons. That’s the halo effect. It is very well-established in the psychological literature and not limited to men or even human beings.

Some of the points Jen made are valid criticisms, but the valid criticisms are overshadowed by vague, uninformed statements. Many of the points rely on whether her general claims of “this is what people think” are accurate. She does not cite sources which show that she knows “what people think”, nor is her background in psychology or a related field, which might provide some evidence of expertise in this area.

“I’ve seen it” is not evidence, something a young scientist in training (and many older, experienced ones) must constantly remind themselves in order to overcome our brain’s desire to think that it is.

McCreight defended TAM organizers by repeating a statement made many times by Jeff Wagg about speakers at TAM7:

Last year, 8 women were invited to speak at TAM. 2 said yes. 1 of those women had to cancel.

I have never heard Jeff compare this with the number of men who were invited and how many of those accepted or canceled. Without that comparison, this information tells us nothing.

Frankly, however, I care much more about the quality of the speakers than their gender, but given the number of high-quality speakers available who are women and the ratio seen at other events, the lopsidedness at TAM in past years was a bit disturbing. I thought they did a great job all around this year and didn’t need to be defended.

I thought the sex workshop was on Sunday…

Regarding the “Feminism & Skepticism Workshop”, although I am not the person she quoted, I was sitting directly behind McCreight and walked out when “Angry Vagina Craft Time” was announced.

My take? There are three criteria which should have been met for a topic or activity to be included in this workshop:

1. It is a feminism issue.
2. It is a skepticism issue.
3. The discussion is well-researched and well reasoned.

Although there were definitely some good points, much of what was discussed prior to “Angry Vagina Craft Time” failed to meet one or more of these criteria, especially #3.

Asking people to make vaginas (term used loosely) out of felt and googlie eyes did not make me uncomfortable, but infantilizing women’s genitalia and calling it “light humor” made me a bit angry – yes, I had an angry vagina. And an angry jaw. It could have made many women very uncomfortable, yet it served no purpose that I could see short of a “fuck you” to those who have criticized the workshop’s organizers in the past for such things.

I left because I had seen enough.

Overall, in regard to sexism at TAM8, I thought this year was a huge improvement over last. I attribute this largely to a different mix of attendees. I really wish that friends who were turned off by the culture last year could have experienced it. Perhaps they would see the community differently.

To sum up my experiences and in answer to McCreight’s questions: There were exactly two times during the weekend when I was offended. That workshop was one of them. Ironic, isn’t it?