Broadening the Scope of Research on Body Image Concerns, with a Focus on Personality Traits and Selfie Behaviour – A Review of Existing Literature

Abstract

This study extensively reviews the literature and empirical studies on the new factors that contribute to body image concerns like social media usage, selfie behaviour, and photo manipulation habits. The study aims to identify the gaps in this field and formulate a comprehensive research agenda with variables that have not been explicitly, extensively, and empirically studied yet. Searches of relevant databases with appropriate keywords and extended searches of the reference lists were done to identify relevant papers. The results revealed very little evidence of articles that specifically studied the relationship between body image, personality traits, and photo manipulation habits. Further, there wasn’t sufficient evidence of literature that proved that the relationship between these variables was either specifically studied or empirically tested in the Indian context. As the number of papers found that specifically studied these variables was very limited, a narrative style is chosen to adequately synthesize the findings and present the identified research gap in a logical and contextual sequence instead of the traditional systematic review of literature format. The researcher has successfully formulated a compelling research agenda that will add significantly to the existing literature on this subject.