Digitally curated beauty: The impact of slimming beauty filters on body image, weight loss desire, self-objectification, and anti-fat attitudes

Abstract

The use of Augmented Reality (AR) beauty filters has been on the rise, given the advancement of technology making them more easily accessible, plentiful, and realistic. Although previous work has established beauty filters as a source of poor body image, little is known about the mechanisms for these outcomes. The current study applies social comparison theorizing to the use of beauty filters and establishes a new concept in the field: social self-comparison (i.e., the process of individuals making comparisons between their filtered image and real self-image). An online experiment of social media users (N = 187) was conducted to examine the effects of using a slimming beauty filter on body image and weight-related perceptions. Results indicate that comparison processes were strongest when participants used the beauty filter on their own image versus viewing someone else's filtered image, supporting the importance of examining social self-comparison processing. Overall, the results of the current study underscore the impact of beauty filter usage on body image, identifying body dysmorphia and social self-comparison as important mediators in the relationships between filter usage and body image-related outcomes, including a desire for weight loss, self-objectification, and anti-fat attitudes, among others.