Peer pressure to “Fat talk”: Does audience type influence how women portray their body image?

“Fat talk” describes women discussing their bodies disparagingly for impression management while interacting with one another. This study examined whether college females deliberately alter their self-reported body image according to characteristics of their prospective audience. This study was a mixed experimental design with four audience conditions (private, public, female audience, male audience) as the between-subjects factor and time across trials as the within-subjects factor using college females as participants (N = 100). Pre versus posttest changes on the Body Esteem Scale (BES) and the Body Weight Figure Assessment (BWFA) served as the dependent variables. It was hypothesized that body image would decrease to indicate self-derogation (fat talk) in the public audience and female audience conditions, whereas body image would increase in the male audience condition. These hypotheses were not supported using repeated measures ANOVA. Strengths and weaknesses of the study are discussed.