Fair and lovely Building an integrated model to examine how peer influence mediates the effects of skin-Lightening advertisements on college women in Singapore

In this study, we proposed an integrated model with which we suggested that perceptions of peers and interpersonal communication with peers each mediate the influence of skin-lightening advertisements on college women in a South Asian country - Singapore. The model is built based on the influence-of-presumed-influence model. We found that college women in Singapore tended to infer their peers' advertising exposure and the corresponding advertising influence on peers based on their own advertising exposure. Their exposure to skin-lightening advertisements also induced their discussions about fair-skinned appearance with peers. Based on their perceptions of advertising influence on peers and interpersonal communication with peers, college women inferred their peers' favourable attitudes towards fair-skinned appearance. Finally, they aligned their personal attitudes with their female peers' attitudes and their attitudes predicted their intention to adopt skin-lightening regimes.