Introduction to the special issue: Body image - Vulnerability factors and processes linking sociocultural pressures and body dissatisfaction

This special issue highlights the growing importance of research on body image in social and clinical psychology. Its prominence is increasing, its significance for both women’s and men’s psychological functioning is being recognised, and it is becoming an area of theoretical and empirical interest in its own right. Sociocultural theory postulates links between pressures from social sources (mass media, peer groups, significant individuals) and body dissatisfaction. The studies in this special issue all contribute to a better understanding of the nature of these links through either examining factors that make individuals more vulnerable to sociocultural pressures or identifying psychological processes through which these pressures take their negative effects on body satisfaction. Implications for future research directions are discussed.