title: Media Impacts on Women's Fertility Desires: A Prolonged Exposure Experiment.
abstract: Media exposure may have implications for family planning, a public health issue of key importance. Drawing on social comparison theory and social identity theory, a prolonged exposure experiment examined whether media portrayals of women's social roles affect fertility desires among 166 American, nonstudent, never married, childless women ages 21-35 years old. After sign-up and baseline sessions, participants viewed magazine pages five days in a row. Stimuli presented women in either mother/homemaker roles, beauty ideal roles, or professional roles. Three days later, participants again indicated their number of desired children and time planned until first birth. Exposure to mother/homemaker and beauty ideal portrayals increased the number of desired children across time. Exposure to professional portrayals increased the time planned until 1st birth compared to beauty ideal portrayals-this impact was partially mediated by a shift toward more progressive gender norms (per social identity theory) and assimilation (per social comparison theory).
authors.affiliation: a School of Communication , The Ohio State University , Columbus , Ohio , USA.
authors.forename: Silvia
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Knobloch-Westerwick
authors.affiliation: b School of Communications , Quinnipiac University , Hamden , Connecticut , USA.
authors.forename: Laura E
authors.initials: LE
authors.lastname: Willis
authors.affiliation: a School of Communication , The Ohio State University , Columbus , Ohio , USA.
authors.forename: Ashley R
authors.initials: AR
authors.lastname: Kennard
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D005298:Fertility; D006801:Humans; D008402:Mass Media / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D009042:Motivation; D055815:Young Adult