The effect of different types of TikTok dance challenge videos on young women's body satisfaction

The aim of this paper was to investigate the effect of different types of TikTok dance challenge videos on young women's body satisfaction. Study 1 involved 262 women aged between 18 and 25 years, who were randomly assigned to watch TikTok videos featuring either thin dancers, large dancers, or amusing animal videos. Body satisfaction significantly increased after watching large dancer TikTok videos and decreased after watching thin dancer TikTok videos, although this decrease was not significant. Study 2 replicated and extended study 1 and involved 280 women aged between 18 and 25 years. Females body satisfaction significantly decreased after watching the thin dancer TikTok videos and significantly increased after watching the large dancer TikTok videos. There was no significant difference between the participants in terms of state appearance comparison. Females in the thin dancer condition engaged in upward social comparison, whereas the females in the large dancer condition engaged in downward social compression. The impact of video type was not moderated either by trait appearance comparison, or thin ideal internalization. The effect of video type was not mediated by state appearance comparison but was fully mediated by the direction of social comparison. Study 3 involved 375 women aged between 18 and 25 years and found that body satisfaction was lower after watching the thin dancers than after watching the large dancers. This study shows that findings from the previous two studies could not be explained by the demand characteristics in the design of these studies. All three studies show that exposure to large dancers on TikTok has a positive impact on women's body satisfaction, whereas exposure to thin dancers has a negative impact on women's body satisfaction. The implications of these findings for the design of social media are discussed.