Do the media influence your attitude toward tanning? Dermatologists’ primary recommendation to prevent skin cancer is minimal exposure to the sun. Yet, models used in product advertisements are typically well tanned. Do such advertisements influence a consumer’s attitude toward tanning? University of California and California State University researchers designed an experiment to investigate this phenomenon and published their results in Basic and Applied Social Psychology (May 2010). College student participants were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: (1) view product advertisements featuring models with a tan, (2) view product advertisements featuring models without a tan, or (3) view products advertised with no models (control group). The objective was to determine whether the mean attitude toward tanning differs across the three conditions. A tanning attitude index (measured on a scale of 0 to 5 points) was recorded for each participant. The results are summarized in the accompanying table. Tanned Models Models with No Tan No Models Sample Size 56 56 56 Mean