Consumer culture ideals—an affluent lifestyle and perfect appearance—are inescapable; they dominate advertising, digital and traditional media, and social trends, such as ‘retail therapy’ or ‘fitspiration’. But what are the psychological consequences, when we internalise these materialistic and appearance-focused ideals as our personal goals? Professor Helga Dittmar is the Director of ICCWell research lab, which investigates the impact of these ideals on identity, well-being, and behaviour in adults, adolescents, and children.
ICCWell Lab Meetings Programme Spring 2020
Pevensey 1, Conference Room 2B14, Tuesdays 12.30-1.30
28th January Special Meeting: Cross-Cultural Project on Identity, Consumer Culture, & Well-Being: Recap and Restart .
tbc: Vivian Vignoles, Vlad Costin, Helga Dittmar, Yasin Koc, Pete Harris, Tim Jackson, Amy Isham, Elina Leventaki
4th February Impact of Exposure to Consumer Culture Ideal in Social Media: The Instagram Research Project Helga Dittmar, students
11th February [Matt Easterbrook? Social cure]
18th February Impact of Exposure to Non-Human Characters on Body Image: Dancing Mushrooms Megan Hurst, Helga Dittmar, students
25th February
3rd March Body Ideals and Media: Resolving Inconsistet Evidence through New Meta-Analysis . Sam Vo, Rod Bond
10th March Mindfulness and Self-Related Processes Helga Dittmar, Max Lovell
17th March [Megan Hurst? Body image and SES]
24th March . Autoregressive cross-lagged panel analysis vs. latent growth modelling using CCCP example . Rod Bond
21st April
28th April
A summary of our work can be found in this research monograph
Dittmar, H. (2011). Consumer culture, identity and well-being: The search for the ‘good life’ and the ‘body perfect’. European Monographs in Social Psychology. Paperback edition. Psychology Press: Hove and New York.
