title: Social physique anxiety and physical self-esteem: gender and age effects.
abstract: The aim of this study was to test the generalisability of the factor pattern, structural parameters, factor correlations and latent mean structure of social physique anxiety and physical self-esteem across gender, age and gender x age. The social physique anxiety scale and general physical self-esteem scale from the physical self-perception profile was administered to high school and university students aged 11-24 years (N = 2334). Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was used to test the adequacy of a two-factor correlated model in the full sample, and separately by gender, age and gender x age sub-samples. The CFA model satisfied criteria for goodness-of-fit with the data in all sub-samples, the only exception was for females aged 21 and over. Tests of invariance of the factor pattern, structural parameters and correlations across age, gender and age x gender revealed few decrements in goodness-of-fit. Latent means analysis revealed that females had consistently higher levels of social physique anxiety and lower levels of physical self-esteem than males, with the exception of the 11-12 age group. Results extend previous findings that females tend to report higher levels of social physique anxiety and lower levels of physical self-esteem than males by demonstrating that these differences are consistent across age group.
authors.affiliation: Social Psychology, Personality, and Health Research Group, School of Psychology, University Park, Nottingham, NG7 2RD, UK. martin.hagger@nottingham.ac.uk
authors.forename: Martin S
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Hagger
authors.forename: Andy
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Stevenson
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D001007:Anxiety; D001828:Body Image; D002648:Child; D005163:Factor Analysis, Statistical; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008297:Male; D012649:Self Concept; D006113:United Kingdom; D055815:Young Adult