The effects of Instagram's idealized portrayals of motherhood on new mothers' well-being

Abstract

Similar to how early mass media idealized the experience of motherhood through content such as celebrity mother profiles in magazines, social media is now disseminating idealized portrayals of motherhood that may be putting increased pressures on mothers and negatively affecting their mental health. This study was designed to examine if and how Instagram posts portraying motherhood have an impact on new mothers' well-being. The study argues that by depicting motherhood, these Instagram posts are motivationally relevant for new mothers and thereby increase activation of the mothers' appetitive motivational system and the cognitive resources allocated to processing the posts. An experimental design was employed to test the causal effects of the idealization (i.e., whether the motherhood portrayals are idealized or non-idealized) and source (i.e., whether the portrayals are from a mommy influencer or an everyday mother) of these motherhood portrayals. A total of 464 new mothers were exposed to 20 Instagram posts portraying motherhood. The findings showed that new mothers make greater social comparisons to Instagram motherhood portrayals that are non-idealized (rather than idealized) and from everyday social media mothers (rather than mommy influencers). The mothers in the study perceived greater similarity to these posts (the non-idealized, everyday mother posts) and, as a result, paid greater attention to these posts, which, in turn, increased their recognition memory of the post content. That said, while social comparisons were higher for the non-idealized portrayals, the idealized portrayals were found to have greater negative effects on the well-being of new mothers, as envy and state anxiety were significantly higher after exposure to the idealized posts. This study also provides evidence that particular characteristics of new mothers interact with the portrayals to influence the effects of the posts. For example, the findings show that mothers with low self-esteem are more susceptible to idealized portrayals of motherhood causing lowered life satisfaction, and mothers who are highly inclined to make social comparisons are more susceptible to idealized portrayals of motherhood causing lowered feelings of parental competence.