A pilot study of the impact of brief exposure to images of breastfeeding mothers on attitudes towards mother’s breastfeeding in public

Newell, C., Sandoz, E. and Tyndall, I. (2022) A pilot study of the impact of brief exposure to images of breastfeeding mothers on attitudes towards mother’s breastfeeding in public. Health Communication, 37 (2). pp. 185-190. ISSN 1532-7027

[thumbnail of This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Health Communication on 05/10/2020, available online: https://doi.org/10.1080/10410236.2020.1830511] Text (This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Health Communication on 05/10/2020, available online: https://doi.org/10.1080/10410236.2020.1830511)
Health Communication Breastfeeding Attitudes September 2020.pdf - Accepted Version
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Abstract

The wider societal attitudes held towards mothers’ breastfeeding in public seem to impact infant feeding choices. The present study employed an online (N = 396) experimental pre-test post-test design set to examine whether a mere exposure effect of briefly viewing and rating the valence of four different images of public breastfeeding (i.e., mother and baby alone, females in background, males in background, and females and males in background) would impact on participants’ attitudes towards a mother breastfeeding in public. There was a marginal increase in the positive attitudes towards public breastfeeding at Time 2 when compared with Time 1 following exposure to the four images. These findings support a potential positive mere exposure effect in enhancing attitudes towards breastfeeding in public. This suggests a greater use of promotional material using visual stimuli may improve societal acceptance of breastfeeding in public.

Publication Type: Articles
Uncontrolled Keywords: Breastfeeding attitudes, Public breastfeeding, Infant feeding, Societal support, Media promotion, Communication, Health, Social science
Subjects: B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology
H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General)
H Social Sciences > HQ The family. Marriage. Women
R Medicine > RA Public aspects of medicine
R Medicine > RJ Pediatrics
Divisions: Academic Areas > Institute of Education, Social and Life Sciences > Psychology
Depositing User: Ian Tyndall
Date Deposited: 09 Sep 2020 13:46
Last Modified: 05 Apr 2022 00:10
URI: https://eprints_test.chi.ac.uk/id/eprint/5320

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