Consequences of Korean Drama on Perceived Stress, Body Image, and Emotional Satisfaction on Female College Students

The rising popularity of K-dramas among emerging adult women has raised questions about their potential impact on perceived stress, relationship satisfaction, and body image because emerging adults may seek love but K-dramas tend to portray unrealistic relationship and beauty standards which might affect body image and relationship satisfaction of emerging adults, especially if they are women, either negatively or positively, when compared with women of the same age group who do not watch K-dramas. Also, this age group is vulnerable to stress so how K-dramas affect that is also a question when compared with non-watchers. Therefore, this study aims to find out how K-dramas might affect an emerging adult woman’s perceived stress, relationship satisfaction, and body image. Data was collected from 204 female college students aged between 18- 25 years using questionnaires. The research results showed that there is a statistically significant difference between K-drama watchers and non-watchers in terms of relationship satisfaction, perceived stress, and body image. K-drama watchers were found to have less perceived stress and more body image dissatisfaction along with relationship dissatisfaction than non-watchers. However, only relationship satisfaction and body image emerged as the significant predictors of watching K-dramas with low body image satisfaction and relationship satisfaction being the likelihood of being a K-drama watcher. The results further revealed that apart from body image, perceived stress, and relationship satisfaction, there could be other factors that might influence the likelihood of being a K-drama watcher, thus, that needs to be researched.