The Cost of Being the Ideal Girl: Self Silencing associated with Eating Attitude, Emotional Suppression, and identity Conflict in Indian Youth

Abstract

Gender roles in India often strengthen obedience, modesty, and self-sacrifice, shaping how girls, adolescent and young women learn to regulate their emotions and construct their identities. Grounded in Self-Silencing Theory (Jack, 1991) and the process model of emotion regulation (Gross & John, 2003), this study examined how self-silencing patterns and emotion-regulation strategies relate to eating behavior, psychological well-being and identity formation among Indian adolescent girls and young women. Using a concurrent mixed-method design, 30 participants aged 18–25 years (M = 21.8, SD = 1.31) completed the Silencing the Self Scale (Jack & Dill, 1992) and the Eating Attitudes Test-26 (EAT-26; Garner et al., 1982), Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (Gross & John, 2003), while the Draw-A-Person Test (Machover, 1949; Hammer, 1997) was used to project qualitative indicators of personality and emotional functioning. Quantitative findings revealed significant associations within the domains of externalized self-perception with disordered eating attitudes (r = .410; R² = .168), divided self with expressive suppression (r = .493), and cognitive reappraisal with oral-control tendencies (r = .397). Regression analyses showed that self-silencing dimensions accounted for 16.8% to 24.4% of variance across outcomes. Qualitative DAP themes reflected emotional inhibition, fragile self-concept, identity instability, dependency–autonomy conflict and suppressed aggression. Overall, the results suggest that cultural expectations of the “ideal girl” may foster self-silencing, maladaptive emotion regulation, and psychological strain, underscoring the need for gender-responsive mental-health interventions that promote autonomy, authentic self-expression, and healthier coping.