Use Your Imagination: College Women's Responses to a Social‐Evaluative Body Image Threat

This study examined psychological and heart rate responses to an imagined social‐evaluative body image threat in women ( N = 97). Participants were randomly assigned to picture themselves trying on swimsuits in a store with a group of friends (social‐evaluative threat) or alone (non‐social‐evaluative threat). Measures of state body image and heart rate recordings were completed prior to and following the scenario. A significant group‐by‐time …