That’s the finding from a new UBC Sauder School of Business study, which found that consumers who report lower self-esteem are far more likely to have a negative reaction to clothing on a mannequin than those with higher self-esteem<\/strong>. The effect was the same for both men and women.<\/p>\n “When that mannequin is an example of perfection, it reminds people who are vulnerable that they don’t measure up,” said UBC Sauder professor and study co-author Darren Dahl. “The problem is the beauty ideal that mannequins represent. When people feel they don’t meet that ideal, their view of the product dims as well.”<\/p>\n For the study, participants were surveyed about their level of “appearance self-esteem<\/strong>.” They then evaluated clothing such as bikinis and dresses on the mannequins.<\/p>\n Interestingly, when researchers knocked a mannequin’s beauty down a notch by marking the face, removing the hair or removing the head entirely, consumers with negative views of their own bodies warmed to the apparel<\/strong>, likely because the figure no longer reflected society’s high beauty standards.<\/p>\n When researchers boosted participants’ body image through positive affirmations before seeing the mannequins, their negative perceptions of the products diminished<\/strong>. When mannequins modelled less appearance-related items, such as umbrellas, the effect disappeared.<\/p>\n Although mannequins are used across the retail industry worldwide, little was previously known about how they actually affect shopper behaviour. Given the global apparel industry is valued at $3 billion, the study could have profound implications for both consumers and retailers.<\/p>\n Dahl suggested retailers consider using half mannequins, which are less expensive and less threatening<\/strong>.<\/p>\n “When consumers know what pushes their buttons, it’s empowering,” said Dahl. “It lets people see what the product looks like on a body, but it doesn’t give them the full picture, which seems a little tougher for people to deal with.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" From the\u00a0University of British Columbia press release: Mannequins’ long legs, tiny waistlines and perfect busts can sour some shoppers on the products they’re wearing, especially consumers who don’t like the… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[526],"tags":[20,12,167,311],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23484"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23484"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23484\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23550,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23484\/revisions\/23550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/Mannequins-300x194.jpg\")
Mannequins’ long legs, tiny waistlines and perfect busts can sour some shoppers on the products they’re wearing, especially consumers who don’t like the look of their own bodies.<\/strong><\/p>\n