UC Davis

The objective of this dissertation was to examine how women use social media for self-portrayal and whether adherence to gendered norms of physical attractiveness and message assertiveness influence the evaluations of these portrayals. Three studies were conducted. In the first experiment, women’s physical attractiveness was found to affect their persuasiveness through likeability and perceived competence; benevolent sexism moderated this mediation. In the second experiment, women’s physical attractiveness was found to influence reader’s sexism indirectly and negatively, through perceived competence. Assertiveness interacted with attractiveness to influence gender related collective self-esteem for female participants. The third study was a content analysis examining portrayals of pregnancy on Instagram. This study concluded that pregnancy representations on social media are not realistic; they were found to be overly positive, highly commercialized, and endorsing normative beauty ideals. Overall, all three studies found self-portrayals of women on social media to be informed and influenced by gender normative expectations.