Thesis Defence: Tiny Interventions, Big Impact? An Experimental Investigation Into the Role of Auditory Micro Interventions on Body Image and Thin Ideal Exposure

Erin Fraser, supervised by Dr. Maya Libben, will defend their thesis titled “Tiny Interventions, Big Impact? An Experimental Investigation Into the Role of Auditory Micro Interventions on Body Image and Thin Ideal Exposure” in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Clinical Psychology.

An abstract for Erin Fraser’s thesis is included below.

Defences are open to all members of the campus community as well as the general public. Registration is not required for in-person defences.

Abstract

The present study examined the effectiveness of brief microinterventions in reducing state body dissatisfaction and their capacity to attenuate the impact of thin-ideal imagery among female-identifying undergraduate students. 245 participants were randomly assigned to one of eight conditions formed by crossing four study tasks (gratitude meditation, mindfulness meditation, narrated history text, or read history text) with two imagery types (thin-ideal or neutral). State body dissatisfaction, gratitude, and mindfulness were assessed across three time points using validated visual analogue scales. Building on Fraser et al. (2022) the study introduced two methodological refinements: (1) the inclusion of a reading-based control condition to isolate the potential influence of a narrating voice, and (2) in-person laboratory administration to reduce the potential for participant inattention. Results indicated that all study tasks were associated with significant short-term reductions in state body dissatisfaction; however, these effects did not differ across intervention and control conditions. Furthermore, reductions were not maintained following exposure to thin-ideal imagery, as body dissatisfaction returned to baseline levels, whereas improvements persisted following exposure to neutral images. Manipulation checks confirmed that the gratitude and mindfulness tasks effectively increased their intended psychological states. Sensitivity analyses indicated that findings were robust to baseline differences in body dissatisfaction and Body Mass Index. Taken together, these findings suggest that brief microinterventions may produce short-term reductions in body dissatisfaction, but these effects are not specific to the intervention content and may not persist following exposure to thin-ideal imagery. Future research should focus on identifying conditions under which these approaches may produce more sustained effects.