3D visualisation of psychometric estimates for the ideal male body
Open accessAbstract
Psychological concerns are frequently indexed by psychometric questionnaires but the mental representations that they seek to quantify are difficult to visualise. We used a set of questionnaires designed to measure men's concept of their bodies including: the Drive for Muscularity Scale (DMS; McCreary & Sasse, 2000), the Perceived Sociocultural Pressures Scale (PSPS; Stice, Nemeroff, & Shaw, 1996a), the Body Appreciation Scale (BAS-2; Tylka & Wood-Barcalow, 2015), and the Sociocultural Attitudes Towards Appearance Questionnaire-3 (SATAQ-3; Thompson, van den Berg, Roehrig, Guarda, & Heinberg, 2004). We combined their use with an interactive 3D modelling programme to allow men to create computer-generated representations of their ideal bodies. We used a principal component analysis to extract those shape components of our participants' CGI ideal bodies that were predicted by the questionnaires and reconstructed the body shapes that these questionnaires were capturing. Moving from the lowest to the highest score on both the DMS and SATAQ corresponded with changes in muscularity, particularly muscle mass and definition. This approach allows us to demonstrate the actual body features that are being captured by a particular questionnaire.
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There have been few attempts to directly address what the internal visual template of the ideal body for men and women looks like.
“To our knowledge, there have been few attempts to address this question directly [but see, e.g., (Brown and Slaughter, 2011; Mohamed et al., 2021)].”
From The degree to which the cultural ideal is internalized predicts judgments of male and female physical attractiveness (2022) · cites this paper as Mohamed et al., 2021
Mohamed et al. (2021) found that increasing psychometric scores were associated with a desire for reduced body fat, increased muscularity, and increased muscle tone, but these effects were visually not as salient as the effects found in the current study.
“While it is clear that increasing psychometric scores were associated with a desire for reduced body fat, increased muscularity, and increased muscle tone, these effects were visually not as salient as the effects we have found in the current study.”
From The degree to which the cultural ideal is internalized predicts judgments of male and female physical attractiveness (2022) · cites this paper as Mohamed et al. (2021)
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References 62 · Cited by 6
- Authors
- Mohamed, S., Kramer, R. S. S., Thornborrow, T., Pollet, T. V., Tovée, M. J., & Cornelissen, P. L.
- Affiliations
- Aberdeen Royal Infirmary (GB)
- University of Lincoln (GB)
- Northumbria University (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Tovée, Martin J.
- ORCID
- Venue
- Body Image
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2021-09
- Volume
- 38
- Pages
- 295-305
- ISSN
- 1740-1445 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W3164428207
- Cited by
- 6
- References
- 62
- Citations by year
- 2025: 1 · 2024: 1 · 2023: 1 · 2022: 3
- FWCI
- 0.85
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- figshare.com
- Licence
- Locations
- Body Image (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Lincoln Repository (University of Lincoln) (acceptedVersion)
- Northumbria Research Link (Northumbria University) (acceptedVersion)
- Figshare (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- Figshare (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Eating Disorders and Behaviors
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Body Image and Dysmorphia Studies
- Social Sciences › Gender Studies › Gender Roles and Identity Studies
- Keywords
- computer-generated imagery, Drive for Muscularity Scale, Body Appreciation Scale, muscularity, body shape perception, sociocultural pressure
- MeSH terms
- Body Image, Humans, Male, Psychometrics, Surveys and Questionnaires, Reproducibility of Results, Imaging, Three-Dimensional
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