Sex Differences in ObjectificationCasie Rindfleisch & Regan A. R.

Gurung University of Wisconsin, Green Bay

INTRODUCTION

METHOD

RESULTS

DISCUSSION

ABSTRACT

Do you ever make judgments about somebody by the way they look, or by what they are wearing? If you do then you may be objectifying them. Objectification theory states that society socializes women to see their bodies as sexual objects to be looked at (Fredricksons & Roberts, 1997). Since women are portrayed as sexual objects, social role theory would suggest that both men and women alike are socialized to view themselves in accordance with these social roles (Kimmel, 2001).

Objectification is not limited to women: It effects men as well. In fact men are objectified by other men and by themselves. Men spend a lot of time comparing themselves to other men because of the competition between men to find a woman (Kimmel, 2001). Men will go to great extents to improve their body. Examples of this include extreme weightlifting and steroid use (Olivarida, 2002). The ideal male figure is becoming harder to obtain due to the increase in male sexualization in the media. Consequently, self-objectification within males is increasing as a whole (Bordo, 1999). A study done on school age children looked at how boys rated photos of other boys. It was found that boys are increasing becoming more critical of their bodies as well as other boys’ bodies (Murren, Smolak, Mills, & Good, 2003). Pope, Phillips, and Olivardia (2000) found similar findings. Men underestimated their own body size while they overestimated the size of the average man’s body.

Women on the other hand not only objectify themselves and other women, but they are objectified by men. Women objectify themselves because they have been socialized to believe that they need men in their lives (Eagly, 1987) and women feel that men are looking for the perfect body. This causes women to be very critical of their bodies and do things such as extreme dieting and exercise to improve themselves (Beebe, Hombeck, Lane, & Rosa, 1996). One way women measure their bodies is to compare themselves to other women. This leads women to be critical and to objectify other women. Tiggerman (2001) demonstrated this when she had women imagine themselves in both social and non-social body-focused situations. Those women who were in the body-focused situations reported higher anxiety and body dissatisfaction along with lower self-esteem. In another study women reported high levels of anxiety and body dissatisfaction when they thought they were going to be interviewed by a male compared to a female (Calogero, 2004).

Since objectification has become wide spread across both sexes it is necessary to take a closer look at who is doing the objectifying and at what rate. We hypothesized that there will be a correlation between self-objectification and other-objectification. Moreover, men will objectify other men and women at a higher rate than women, while women will objectify themselves at a higher rate than men do.

This study was a 2 (male/female) by 3 (self, other-same sex, other-opposite sex) mixed factorial design. The independent variables were the target’s sex and participant’s sex, and the dependent variable was the rating participants gave to themselves and to the target males and females.

Participants in this study were 115 undergraduate students at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay who were primarily students enrolled in an introduction to psychology course during the fall semester of 2005 and fulfilled a course requirement. The mean age of subjects was 19.79 (SD = 4.32) with an age range of 18-52 years old. 57 of the participants were female while 58 were male. 65 were freshmen, 26 were sophomores, 5 were juniors, 18 were seniors and 1 classified themselves as “other”.

Two different scales were you used to measure self –objectification: The Self-Objectification Questionnaire (Fredrickson, Roberts, Noll, Quinn, & Twenge 1998) and the Multidimensional Body-Self Relations Appearance Subscale (Brown, Cash, Mikulka, 1990). Other-Objectification was also measured using two separate scales. The Self-Objectification Questionnaire as described above, was modified to be used as a measure of other-objectification. The second other-objectification questionnaire was developed to asses how attractive the participant thought the target was, and it also was designed to assess personal qualities that could essentially not be determined by the picture that the participant’s saw alone. Three questionnaires were used as control factors. A mood scale, the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (Rosenberg, 1965) and the BEM Sex Role Inventory (to asses masculinity and femininity, Bem, 1974) were also used. Three dummy questionnaires were also embedded to ensure the participants did not know what we were studying. Magazine frequency, post-mood, and feelings felt during the last month were the three questionnaires used.

Procedure: Subjects read and signed a consent form, and then began the experiment. Subjects provided demographic information, took Fredrickson’s Self- Objectification, followed by magazine preferences, BEM, Frederickson's Other-Objectification, mood, self-esteem, and MSRQ self-objectification Finally, the subjects viewed three target female models photos and three male model photos and rated them on perceived characteristics such as attractiveness, loyalty, and fitness.

Contrary to the hypothesis, there was no a correlation between self-objectification and other-objectification. Failure to find a direct link between the two goes against past research and theory. There were two characteristics that were statistically significant for both men and women who had high self-objectification and other-objectification. Men and women who reported always looking in a mirror before leaving the house scored high on the other-objectification scale.

The hypothesis that men who objectified themselves would objectify other male and female models was partially supported; there was a correlation between men who self-objectify themselves and men who objectified the female model. However, women still objectified other women at a higher rate then men did. It is disturbing to se that because of the socialization process women have begun to internalize objectification and use it against other women. It has been thought that men are the root cause of objectification however; this could be changing because ideals and values of objectification have been passed along to women. You see the results of this when you look at the self-objectification rates which are higher among women then men in this study.

It was also hypothesized that women will objectify themselves and other women but not other men. Once again, this was partially supported. As mentioned above women did objectify other women and at a high rate. However, they also objectified other men at a higher rate then men did. This could be due to the fact that men are increasingly being objectified in the media and other aspects of life. However, we are unsure as to why men are not being affected by this and objectifying other men as this goes against social role theory. A possible explanation of this is that male objectification is such a new phenomenon, consequently within a couple of years, we will see men more affected by this (Pope, Phillips, Olivarida, 2001).

This experiment was a good stepping stone. It suggests that there are differences in self and other-objectification. Since basic research has been done on sex differences in objectification more research needs to be done to examine the problem further and suggest possible explanations for the sex differences in objectification.

Are there differences between men and women in how they objectify themselves and others? We measured objectification by having participants complete a self-objectification survey and an other-objectification survey, then had them rate photographs of male and female models. Self-objectification was not correlated with other-objectification but men were more critical of other women. These findings support both objectification and social role theory.

Results indicated that overall women self-objectify themselves at a higher rate then men do, while men objectify other women at a higher rate. However, there was no significant correlation found between the rate at which someone self-objectified and the rate at which someone objectified others, in both sexes. Although, there was a significant correlation α = .03 between objectification of other males and females in both sexes. If you objectified other men you were also likely to objectify other women.

Presented at the 2006 American Psychological Association’s Annual Conference. New Orleans, LA. Email: gurungr@uwgb.edu

Mean scores Self (left)/Other (right)-Objectification

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