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Is objectification always harmful? Reactions to objectifying images and feedback as a function of self-objectification and mortality salience
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 47 (2011) 443–448
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Is objectification always harmful? Reactions to objectifying images and feedback as a function of self-objectification and mortality salience☆ Jamie L. Goldenberg a,⁎, Douglas P. Cooper a, Nathan A. Heflick a, Clay Routledge b, Jamie Arndt c a b c
University of South Florida, Tampa, FL, USA North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND, USA University of Missouri, Columbia, MO, USA
a r t i c l e
i n f o
Article history: Received 20 June 2010 Revised 25 October 2010 Available online 3 December 2010 Keywords: Mortality salience Objectification Self-objectification State self-esteem
a b s t r a c t From the perspective of terror management theory, awareness of death induces a need for validation of important values. Thus, for women who place a high value on their appearance (e.g., high self-objectifiers), mortality salience should increase positive reactions to objectifying experiences relative to women who do not highly value appearance. Two studies supported this hypothesis. Self-objectification moderated favorable reactions to objectifying stimuli (Study 1) and state self-esteem in response to an objectifying comment (Study 2) when women were primed with death. Together, the studies illustrate the complexity of reactions to objectification and, by highlighting conditions in which objectification serves a psychological function, help to explain the pervasiveness of the phenomena. © 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Katie Couric and Hillary Clinton both reached the near tops of the traditionally male professions of news and politics, yet commentary on the performance of each often included analysis of wardrobe choice, hair style, and the decision to show or not show their legs. In sports, the head of FIFA, the international governing body for soccer, suggested that professional female soccer players should wear more revealing clothes to improve ratings. These are but a few of the prevalent examples of the objectification of women. They are especially alarming given the common sense, politically correct, and empirically validated notion that objectification psychologically harms women (e.g., Fredrickson & Roberts, 1997). In this research, however, we pose the question: Do some women, under some circumstances, reap psychological benefits from objectification? Integrating research on terror management, the need for validation of the self, and objectification of women, we posit that under conditions in which the need for validation is strong (e.g., mortality salience; MS), women who place high value on their physical appearance (high self-objectifiers) may respond especially favorably to objectifying images and feedback because such events serve to validate the way they see themselves and their social world.
☆ This study was funded in part by a grant from the National Cancer Institute (NCI), RO1 CA66581. ⁎ Corresponding author. Department of Psychology, PCD 4118G, University of South Florida, 4202 East Fowler Ave, Tampa, FL 33620-7200. Fax: +1 813 974 4617. E-mail address: [email protected] (J.L. Goldenberg). 0022-1031/$ – see front matter © 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2010.11.013
Objectification, Self-Objectification, and Validation of the Self Objectification refers to when a woman's body, body parts, or sexual functions are separated from her person, or regarded as if they are capable of representing her (Bartky, 1990). Objectification theory (Fredrickson & Roberts, 1997) starts with the premise that the objectification of women permeates our culture in both interpersonal encounters (e.g., Swim, Hyers, Cohen, & Ferguson, 2001) and in media portrayals (e.g., Harrison & Fredrickson, 2003). Consequently, women learn to internalize observers' perspectives on their own body and chronically monitor themselves in terms of how others would evaluate their appearance—that is, they self-objectify. Situations that induce a state of self-objectification (e.g., trying on a swimsuit, but not a sweater) have been found to increase women's body dissatisfaction (Tiggemann, 2001), and feelings of shame and restrained eating (Fredrickson, Roberts, Noll, Quinn, & Twenge, 1998). Further, due to the regulatory resources such monitoring requires, self-objectification impairs cognitive performance (e.g., Quinn, Kallen, Twenge, & Fredrickson, 2006). In addition, when women (but not men) are objectified, they are perceived more negatively (e.g., less competent) by others (Heflick & Goldenberg, 2009; Heflick, Goldenberg, Cooper, & Puvia, 2010). In light of the costs of objectification, it seems surprising that women objectify other women (Strelan & Hargreaves, 2005) as well as their selves. But as many women know, and as many others have witnessed on such television shows as Sex and the City and The Real Housewives, commenting on one another's appearance is a ritual that often accompanies women's interactions with one another (e.g., Knapp, Hopper, & Bell, 1984). Why might this be? We suggest that the objectification of women and the consequent self-objectification by
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women reinforces one of the ways they structure and interpret their social world, laying the foundation for self-worth that is rooted in the value placed on physical appearance. To the extent that this occurs, women who are high, relative to low, self-objectifiers may reap certain psychological benefits when exposed to images and evaluations that highlight physical appearance because they highly value this domain. This position is consistent with a number of social psychological perspectives. Self-verification theory (e.g., Swann, 1983), for example, asserts that people maintain a sense of predictability and structure by creating social worlds that enable others to see them as they see themselves, especially when the self-view is highly important and central to one's identity (Pelham & Swann, 1994; see also symbolic self-completion theory, Wicklund & Gollwizter, 1982). Further, research on self-affirmation theory (e.g., Steele, 1988) has demonstrated that the affirmation of important values makes people less defensive when the self is threatened (e.g., Sherman, Nelson, & Steele, 2000). Likewise, Crocker and colleagues' (e.g., Crocker & Knight, 2005) view of self-esteem suggests that experiences and feedback in domains in which one's self-esteem is contingent accounts for fluctuations in individuals' level of state self-esteem (e.g., Crocker, Sommers, & Luhtanen, 2002) and other indices of well-being (e.g., Crocker & Park, 2004). Thus, from at least three major social psychological perspectives, one could expect that people who place a high value on their appearance (i.e., high self-objectifiers) may obtain some measure of psychological protection from objectifying stimuli and experiences. Some findings within the objectification literature, though often de-emphasized or unexpected, are consistent with this suggestion. For example, Fea and Brannon (2006) found that women high in trait self-objectification exhibited less negative mood in response to an appearance compliment (comparable to a compliment about their character) from a female experimenter as compared to a neutral condition. Low self-objectifiers' mood did not differ as a function of conditions. Along these lines, in Gapinski, Brownell, and LaFrance (2003), women who were in a state of self-objectification experienced less negative mood after overhearing a confederate criticize their own weight as compared to an irrelevant conversation, presumably, the authors suggested, because this facilitated a favorable social comparison. Additionally, Breines, Crocker, and Garcia (2008) found that within-person increases in state self-objectification predicted decreased well-being except among women with high, and highly appearance-contingent, self-esteem, who reported increased wellbeing when self-objectifying. These findings suggest that woman who self-objectify may obtain a sense of validation from events that highlight the value of appearance. At the same time, there is contradictory evidence. Women who judge themselves on their appearance sometimes respond negatively to objectification (e.g., in Fredrickson et al., 1998, Study 1, women high in trait self-objectification responded most negatively to the objectification manipulation). Such inconsistency may result because objectification can have different consequences depending on, not just individual differences in the value placed on one's appearance, but situational needs for self-validation. Terror Management Theory and the Need for Validation According to terror management theory (TMT; Solomon, Greenberg, & Pyszczynski, 1991), people face a particularly trenchant need for selfvalidation in light of their awareness of personal mortality. TMT asserts that people obtain a sense of enduring meaning and significance by identifying with, and living up to, culturally-derived systems of value. Indeed, research supports the TMT hypothesis that awareness of death motivates individuals to try and validate their (most often positive) view of the self and culturally-derived identities (e.g., see Greenberg, Solomon, & Arndt, 2008 for a review).
Physical appearance has been shown to be one domain in which some people seek to affirm their worth and strive to meet particular standards in the face of mortality awareness. For example, reminders of mortality increase the desire to suntan, but only amongst those who derive self-esteem from having tanned skin (Routledge, Arndt, & Goldenberg, 2004). More generally, Grabe, Routledge, Cook, Andersen, and Arndt (2005) found that women self-objectified more than men when reminded of mortality, but not in a control condition, and somewhat unexpectedly, women objectified other women to a degree equal to men only following the provocation of death-related thought. The authors speculate that this is due to women more highly evaluating themselves on the basis of appearance. Accordingly, this study documented that after an MS but not control treatment, the importance of appearance to self-esteem predicted increased selfobjectification among men and women. On the basis of these findings, and evidence that people seek validation in the domains in which they derive meaning and value as a means to confront existential fears associated with death, we embarked on the current research. Current Research The research examined whether individual differences in selfobjectification moderate women's reactions to objectifying stimuli and feedback when faced with the awareness of death. Two hypotheses follow from the foregoing analysis. First, to the extent that the objectification of women validates an important aspect of high self-objectifying women's identity, after a reminder of mortality, they should respond more favorably to stimuli that feature the objectification of women than low self-objectifying women. Second, when death-related thought is active, high self-objectifiers should experience a boost to their self-esteem (relative to women low in selfobjectification) in response to receiving an objectifying compliment. Study 1: Media Reactions Study The Sports Illustrated Swim Suit Issue is a quintessential example of an appearance-oriented evaluation of women, and thus a picture of the magazine cover was used as the objectifying image for this study. Although it is expected that women would generally report relatively disapproving evaluations of such an objectifying depiction, we hypothesized that when mortality concerns are active, higher selfobjectification should promote more favorable reactions. As in Grabe et al. (2005), we did not expect high self-objectifiers to endorse such stimuli in the absence of a mortality reminder. Methods Participants One hundred and twenty-two Caucasian female college students (M age = 20.11, SD = 3.87) participated. Participants were restricted to Caucasian because the objectifying and non-objectifying images featured Caucasian women. Procedure Participants were recruited from introductory psychology classes and were awarded course credit for participation. They completed materials in small groups and were told they would be pilot testing materials for future studies. Materials Self-objectification Questionnaire (SOQ). Developed originally by Noll and Fredrickson (1998), the SOQ is designed to measure how important appearance is relative to the body's competence. Following Fredrickson et al. (1998), participants were asked to rank 10 items (5 appearance-related and 5 competence-related) from 0 “having the
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least impact” to 9 “having the greatest impact” on their physical selfconcept. As in previous research, self-objectification scores were calculated by subtracting the sum of the competence items from the sum of the appearance items.
Mortality Salience Prime. The MS manipulation consisted of 15 truefalse questions about either death (e.g., “I am very much afraid to die”) or watching television (e.g., “I like watching sit-coms”) used in prior research (e.g., Greenberg, Porteus, Simon, & Pyszczynski, 1995). These scales were used to make thoughts of death or a neutral topic salient. Delay/Affect. MS effects have been found to be strongest after a short delay, when death-related thought is accessible, but out of focal attention (e.g., Greenberg, Pyszczynski, Solomon, Simon, & Breus, 1994). Thus, mood was assessed with 60 items (PANAS-X, Watson & Clark, 1994) following the prime so that mortality concerns would no longer be in focal attention when participants were introduced to the dependent measure.1 Objectification Prime. Participants were randomly assigned to view one of three magazine covers, purportedly being pilot testing it for inclusion in other research on reactions to the media. Participants in the objectification condition received the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue (February 2, 2000) featuring Daniela Pestova. She was posing on the beach in a bikini bottom with only a barrage of beaded necklaces covering her breasts. The feature “story” on the cover consisted of seeing the models “bust out in 3D (glasses inside).” The nonobjectifying (competence) condition was also taken from Sports Illustrated (September 22, 2003), but featured the female soccer player, Mia Hamm, shown running and dressed in her soccer uniform. The feature story read “The reluctant superstar.” A third condition consisted of a cover from the magazine Coastal Living and showed a dining table overlooking the ocean. The feature story was titled “Relax at the shore.” Reactions to the image. Reactions to the magazine covers were assessed with four items (“How much did you like the magazine cover?” “Did you find it tastefully done?” “Did you find it offensive?” “Would you prefer to see more or less of such images in the media?”). Items were rated on a 9-point scale ranging from “not at all” to “very much” and “more” to “less” for the last item. The last two items were reverse scored and an average liking composite was created (α = .75).
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objectification and MS. This was followed by the 3-way interactions for the objectifying image with self-objectification and MS as well as the competence image with self-objectification and MS. The results revealed main effects for objectification, β = −2.07, SE= .27, t = −7.53, p b .001 (reflecting less liking for the objectifying than the neutral image) and competence, β = −.67, SE= .28, t = −2.44, p = .02 (reflecting less liking for the competence image than the neutral image). The only other significant effect was for the 3-way interaction between the objectifying image, self-objectification, and MS, β = −.10, SE= .05, t = -2.27, p = .03, R2 = .44. We also reformulated the dummy coding so as to compare reactions to the objectifying image to the image depicting competence, and replicated the above analyses. The results revealed, once again, a main effect in response to the objectifying image, β = −1.39, SE = .28, t = −5.02, p = .001 (reflecting less liking for the objectifying image than the competence image), and a 3-way interaction between the objectifying image, self-objectification, and MS, β = −.15, SE = .04, t = −3.75, p b .001, R2 = .45. In light of the evidence that the relationship between selfobjectification and MS varied as a function of the image, we examined the effects of self-objectification and MS within each image condition separately. For each condition, we entered self-objectification and MS, followed by the product term for the 2-way interaction. Within the objectifying image condition we observed the expected 2-way interaction, β = -.08, SE= .04, t = -2.07, p = .05 (Fig. 1). To further examine the significant interaction, simple slope tests were conducted. As predicted, increased level of self-objectification was significantly associated with increased liking only when mortality was salient, β = .07, SE= .03, t = 2.50, p = .02, (p = .84 when it was not). We also found a significant interaction between self-objectification and MS within the competence image condition, β = .07, SE= .02, t = 3.27, p = .002 (also Fig. 1). In this case, however, increased levels of selfobjectification were associated with decreased liking for the image when mortality was salient, β = -.04, SE= .02, t = -2.24, p = .03, and increased liking when mortality was not salient, β = .04, SE= .02, t = 3.27, p = .002. There were no significant effects within the neutral prime condition (ps N .39). Thus, although women generally reported liking the objectifying depiction of a woman least, as predicted, when mortality was salient, high levels of self-objectification were associated with increased liking of the image. Interestingly, high self-objectifiers also liked the competent image less than low self-objectifiers (analogously, low self-objectifiers liked it more) when mortality was salient. This fits with the overall analysis—when reminded of mortality, people are less
Results and discussion To test the hypothesis that self-objectification predicts liking for an image as a function of its objectifying content and the salience of mortality, a series of regression analyses were conducted. First, to determine whether the interaction between self-objectification and MS differentially affected liking for the objectifying, non-objectifying (competence), and neutral magazine cover, dummy variables for the objectifying image and the image depicting competence (each compared to the neutral image) were entered in the first step of the regression analysis along with centered self-objectification scores and mortality salience (dummy coded) (Aiken & West, 1991). In the second step, we entered the product terms representing the interactions of the objectifying image with self-objectification and with MS as well as the interaction of the competence image with self-
9 8 7 6 5
Death Control
4 3 2 1
Low High Low High Low High Self-Objectification Self-Objectification Self-Objectification
Objectification 1
We analyzed negative and positive mood scales of the PANAS-X to test whether any change in mood as a result of the mortality salience manipulation could have played a role in any hypothesized results. As in prior TMT research (see e.g. Goldenberg, Arndt, Hart, & Brown, 2005), there were no significant effects of mortality salience (and/or self-objectification) on self-reported mood.
Competence
Neutral
Note: Low and high self-objectification are plotted at 1 SD +/- from the mean. Higher numbers indicate greater liking.
Fig. 1. Evaluation of Magazine Cover as a Function of Objectifying Content, Mortality Salience, and Self-Objectification.
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favorable to that which does not support their view of the world (i.e., women as competent as opposed to objectified). That low selfobjectifiers liked the competence image more when mortality was salient depicts the same tendency. It is not clear why high selfobjectifiers liked the competence image more than low selfobjectifiers in the absence of MS. Finding no effects in response to the neutral image adds confidence to the interpretation that the instrumental variable in these effects is the objectified or competent depiction of women's bodies.
Body-esteem scale (BES) Subsequent to assessing self-objectification, participants completed the BES (Franzoi & Shields, 1984). Thirty-five items ranging in content from body parts (e.g., “biceps”), to body competence (e.g., “muscular strength”), to body sensation (e.g., “sex drive”), to body appearance (e.g., “appearance of eyes”) were rated from 1, have strong negative feelings about, to, 5, have strong positive feelings about. As in prior research (e.g., Goldenberg, McCoy, Pyszczynksi, Greenberg, & Solomon, 2000), we averaged across all items (α = .91).
Study 2: the objectifying compliment study The first study depicted a positive response to objectifying images for high self-objectifiers who were reminded of mortality. But responding favorably to portrayals of objectification is not the same as being objectified. In Study 2 we tested whether high self-objectifying women also respond favorably to being the target of objectification when deathrelated thought is accessible. As is situations described in the opening paragraph–commentary on Hillary Clinton wardrobe rather than competent performance–we had an experimenter deliver an appearanceoriented comment in the context of participants' salient competent performance. We hypothesized that high self-objectifying women (relative to low self-objectifiers), when faced with a need to validate their self-worth as a result of exposure to a death prime, would experience a boost to their self-esteem when the recipient of an objectifying compliment. To examine the specificity of our hypothesis to the importance of appearance, and not its valence, we assessed individual differences in body-esteem in addition to self-objectification.
Subliminal death manipulation The word-relationship task (see e.g., Arndt, Greenberg, Pyszczynski, & Solomon, 1997) served as a subliminal prime of death-related thought. Participants were told that the computer will present two words sequentially on the computer screen and they have to decide whether the two words are related (e.g., rose and flower) or not (e.g., fajita and sneaker) by pressing the right or left shift key, respectively. Participants were given four practice trials to familiarize themselves with the instructions. All words were presented in the center of the computer screen in 14-pt, Times New Roman font. Participants judged the first and third words presented, which served as forward and backward masks. Each word was displayed for 356 ms and the critical subliminal primes were presented for 28 ms. As in Arndt et al. (1997), in the subliminal death prime condition, the word death was presented between the two masks for 10 word-pair trials, whereas in the control condition, field (matched for word frequency and length) was used. Conditions were coded as group numbers so that the experimenter remained blind to conditions.
Method Participants Ninety-two female college (M age = 21.85, SD = 5.11) students participated. The sample was 43% Caucasian, 21% Hispanic, 19% Black, 10% Asian, and the remaining indicating “other” or “more than one ethnicity.”2 Procedure Participants completed the study individually in small cubicles. A female experimenter explained that they would be completing some personality measures and a word-relationship task on a computer. Additionally, participants were told that during the experiment they would need to get the attention of the experimenter to enter a password before continuing. All materials and instructions were presented on a 15-in. color monitor controlled by a Dell Optiplex GX620 IBM-compatible computer equipped with MediaLab (Empirisoft Corporation, 2008) display software. After the word-relationship task (that also subliminally primed mortality or a control topic), the computer informed the participant that it was scoring their accuracy and speed. After approximately 15 s, participants were prompted to hit “continue” and then the display read: “Based on your speed and accuracy, you scored in the 98th percentile.” Participants were instructed to let the experimenter know that they had received a score, so that she could record it. While recording the score, the experimenter provided objectifying feedback or not (described below). Materials Self-Objectification Questionnaire (SOQ) The 10-item SOQ was modified for the computer. Participants were instructed to rank the attributes by dragging each to a separate column and placing them in order of importance from top to bottom. 2 Because Study 1 included only Caucasian women, we examined whether controlling for ethnicity altered the significant pattern of results. It did not.
Objectifying feedback After receiving the score and opening the door to get the attention of the experimenter, participants were given either objectifying feedback or no feedback. In the objectifying feedback condition, the experimenter whispered “that is a really cute outfit” after writing down the participants' score. In the no feedback condition, the experimenter simply wrote down the score and instructed participants to continue with the study.
State self-esteem (SSE) After completing filler questionnaires, participants completed the social self-esteem subscale of the SSE (Heatherton & Polivy, 1991). We used the social self-esteem subscale because, compared to the performance and appearance subscales, social self-esteem is most likely to be affected in an interpersonal context (e.g., Heatherton & Polivy, 1991 found that social self-esteem was most influenced by concerns about public, but not private, failure) and the performance and appearance subscales would likely be confounded with the feedback manipulation. The subscale consisted of seven-items (e.g., “I feel inferior to others at this moment”) rated from 1, not at all, to 5, extremely. Items were reverse scored as appropriate and a composite was formed (α = .79).
Reactions and demographics Following Arndt et al. (2007), participants answered a series of questions to assess whether they were aware of the prime in the word-relationship task. They were asked whether they ever saw more than two words flashed at a time; if so, whether it was the same or a different word from the others they saw; to list what word may have been flashed between the two target words (an open-ended response); and finally, to assume that there was a word flashed, and select which word they thought it might have been. Participants then responded to demographic questions including age and ethnicity.
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Results and discussion To determine if responses to the awareness check items varied by condition, the closed-ended questions were subjected to Pearson chisquare tests. No significant effects emerged (ps N .21). In addition, no participants volunteered “death” or “field” in the open-ended question. Thus, consistent with previous research (Arndt et al., 1997), it appears that there was no (retrospective) awareness of the masked prime. To test the hypothesis that self-objectification predicts state selfesteem as a function of whether individuals received appearance feedback or not and the priming of mortality, we performed regression analyses. We also tested whether the hypothesized results were specific to selfobjectification, and not individual differences in body-esteem (bodyesteem and self-objectification were found to be negatively correlated, r=–.36, pb .001). Centered self-objectification and body-esteem scores were entered with the dummy coded mortality prime and feedback, followed by the interactions between self-objectification and the mortality prime, self-objectification and feedback, body-esteem and mortality prime, body-esteem and feedback, and mortality prime and feedback. This was followed by the interactions for self-objectification, the mortality prime, feedback and body-esteem, the mortality prime, and feedback in the last step. The results revealed a 2-way interaction between the mortality prime and feedback, β=–.56, SE=.26, t=–2.15, p=.03, in which the subliminal prime of death increased state self-esteem in the no feedback condition (β=–.40, SE=.20, t=–2.04, p=.05), but this effect was reversed and no longer significant when individuals received appearance-oriented feedback. This effect, however, was qualified by the predicted 3-way interaction between self-objectification, the mortality prime, and feedback, β=.06, SE=.02, t=2.81, p=.01, R2 =.32. We deconstructed this interaction by testing for simple interaction effects in the objectifying and no feedback conditions (Fig. 2). There was a significant interaction between self-objectification and the mortality prime in the objectifying feedback condition, β = –.03, SE = .01, t = -2.07, p = .04; within the no feedback condition this interaction was marginal, β = –.03, SE = .02, t = 1.94, p = .06. Critically, as indicated by the 3-way interaction, the pattern varied significantly between feedback conditions. As predicted, in the objectification condition, increased self-objectification was associated with increased state self-esteem when participants were exposed to subliminal death primes, β = .02, SE = .01, t = 2.05, p = .04, whereas there was no difference in the absence of such primes, p = .35. In contrast, when participants received no feedback, self-objectification did not moderate state self-esteem in either the death prime, p = .24, or control conditions, p = .12. The only other effect was a main effect for body-esteem, β = .58, SE = .13, t = 4.38, p = .001 (reflecting higher 5 4.5 4 3.5 3
Death
2.5
Control
2 1.5 1 Low High Self Objectification
Low High Self Objectification
Objectifying Feedback
No Feedback
Note: Low and high self-objectification are plotted at 1 SD +/- from the mean. Higher numbers indicate higher state self-esteem.
Fig. 2. State Self-Esteem as a Function of Objectifying Feedback, Mortality Prime, and Self-Objectification.
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state self-esteem as a function of higher body-esteem), but this variable did not interact with any of the manipulations in this analysis (ps N .25). Extending Study 1, individual differences in self-objectification interacted with an objectifying situation in the context of heightened death-related cognition. In this study the relationship was found in the context of an objectifying comment directed toward the participant. Moreover, these effects occurred independent of level of body-esteem (which did not interact with the mortality prime and objectifying feedback manipulations) suggesting that it was not the positivity or negativity of women's feelings about their bodies that influenced these reactions, but the degree that they valued their appearance. However, one must caution that although complimenting a woman's appearance in the context of successful performance can certainly be considered demeaning, it is not explicitly so. The women still received a compliment. Future research should address whether similar outcomes would be observed in the context of more negative or ambiguous objectification situations. In implicating self-esteem as an outcome, this research suggests that there is considerable similarity between trait self-objectification and appearance-contingent self-esteem. That the state self-esteem of high self-objectifiers was bolstered as a function of a compliment in this domain only when mortality concerns were activated, however, suggests that the two traits are not entirely synonymous. From our perspective, self-objectification represents a broader, more global, tendency to value appearance, with the implications for self-esteem representing one potential outcome. More research would be useful to better differentiate the two constructs. General discussion Across two studies a consistent picture emerged. Women's reactions to an objectifying image (Study 1) and an appearanceoriented compliment in the context of competent performance (Study 2) were affected by individual differences in self-objectification when thoughts of mortality were activated. Specifically, when thoughts of death were active, women who valued appearance over competence (i.e., high self-objectifiers) responded with increasingly favorable reactions to objectifying stimuli. Not only did they report liking the objectifying stimuli more (and the stimuli depicting a woman's body in a competent manner less), but they experienced a boost to their self-esteem. These findings suggest that the consequences of objectification are complex. Clearly, objectification has a number of deleterious effects on health and well-being (see Fredrickson & Roberts, 1997); however, these findings reveal that some women, under some circumstances, reap psychological benefits from objectification. To the extent that women judge themselves based on their appearance, being objectified may in certain circumstances offer validation of that central identity component, which in turn, augments their sense of self-worth. Such insights are derived from an integrative consideration of a number of different theoretical perspectives, including work on objectification, terror management, and the need for validation of the self. Again, the present results should not be taken to undermine the many documented ill effects of objectification for women, but they do reveal conditions under which women not only report liking objectifying images, but that this type of stimuli may function as a type of validation of the self. Breines et al. (2008) recently came to a similar conclusion, although they highlighted that it is important to be mindful that even though a positive impact can be documented, there may be negative effects not captured by the measures in the study. Further, as Crocker and Park (2004) have articulated, pursuing self-esteem through extrinsically validated contingencies, such as appearance, can have a number of consequences in and of itself; and thus, while there may be temporary boosts to self-esteem from validation of appearance as a value, it makes sense that there may be
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long-term deficits to other basic needs as a result. Finally, as Heflick and Goldenberg (2009; Heflick et al., 2010) have recently depicted, in addition to the intra-psychological consequences (good or bad) of objectification, there are also interpersonal consequences, including diminished perceptions of competence, warmth, and morality, when other people focus on their appearance. Although the studies reported here are not without limitations and leave questions for future research, they help to convey the complexity of reactions to objectification, which for the most part have been depicted with a simple “objectification is bad” approach. The findings help explain what often seems like, not only a tolerance for objectification, but women's efforts to facilitate it. For example, these findings shed light on why women comment on appearance so often to each other (e.g., Knapp et al., 1984), evaluate other women on the basis of their appearance (e.g., Strelan & Hargreaves, 2005), and engage in efforts to attract attention to their own appearance, even in domains where competence is clearly more relevant (Lehrman, 1997). As Goffman's (1959) seminal analysis makes clear, much of our social interactions involve “face-work” wherein we seek to not only present a desired self to others, but to validate the self that others present to us. Some people may thus act to objectify both self and others because they believe, accurately in some circumstances, that this may offer a validation of a person's strivings. In highlighting this psychological function of objectification and the complexity of reactions and motivations surrounding it, this work sheds new light on the pervasiveness of the phenomena, and in so doing, may ultimately be helpful in its undoing.
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Reports
Is objectification always harmful? Reactions to objectifying images and feedback as a function of self-objectification and mortality salience☆ Jamie L. Goldenberg a,⁎, Douglas P. Cooper a, Nathan A. Heflick a, Clay Routledge b, Jamie Arndt c a b c
University of South Florida, Tampa, FL, USA North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND, USA University of Missouri, Columbia, MO, USA
a r t i c l e
i n f o
Article history: Received 20 June 2010 Revised 25 October 2010 Available online 3 December 2010 Keywords: Mortality salience Objectification Self-objectification State self-esteem
a b s t r a c t From the perspective of terror management theory, awareness of death induces a need for validation of important values. Thus, for women who place a high value on their appearance (e.g., high self-objectifiers), mortality salience should increase positive reactions to objectifying experiences relative to women who do not highly value appearance. Two studies supported this hypothesis. Self-objectification moderated favorable reactions to objectifying stimuli (Study 1) and state self-esteem in response to an objectifying comment (Study 2) when women were primed with death. Together, the studies illustrate the complexity of reactions to objectification and, by highlighting conditions in which objectification serves a psychological function, help to explain the pervasiveness of the phenomena. © 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Katie Couric and Hillary Clinton both reached the near tops of the traditionally male professions of news and politics, yet commentary on the performance of each often included analysis of wardrobe choice, hair style, and the decision to show or not show their legs. In sports, the head of FIFA, the international governing body for soccer, suggested that professional female soccer players should wear more revealing clothes to improve ratings. These are but a few of the prevalent examples of the objectification of women. They are especially alarming given the common sense, politically correct, and empirically validated notion that objectification psychologically harms women (e.g., Fredrickson & Roberts, 1997). In this research, however, we pose the question: Do some women, under some circumstances, reap psychological benefits from objectification? Integrating research on terror management, the need for validation of the self, and objectification of women, we posit that under conditions in which the need for validation is strong (e.g., mortality salience; MS), women who place high value on their physical appearance (high self-objectifiers) may respond especially favorably to objectifying images and feedback because such events serve to validate the way they see themselves and their social world.
☆ This study was funded in part by a grant from the National Cancer Institute (NCI), RO1 CA66581. ⁎ Corresponding author. Department of Psychology, PCD 4118G, University of South Florida, 4202 East Fowler Ave, Tampa, FL 33620-7200. Fax: +1 813 974 4617. E-mail address: [email protected] (J.L. Goldenberg). 0022-1031/$ – see front matter © 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2010.11.013
Objectification, Self-Objectification, and Validation of the Self Objectification refers to when a woman's body, body parts, or sexual functions are separated from her person, or regarded as if they are capable of representing her (Bartky, 1990). Objectification theory (Fredrickson & Roberts, 1997) starts with the premise that the objectification of women permeates our culture in both interpersonal encounters (e.g., Swim, Hyers, Cohen, & Ferguson, 2001) and in media portrayals (e.g., Harrison & Fredrickson, 2003). Consequently, women learn to internalize observers' perspectives on their own body and chronically monitor themselves in terms of how others would evaluate their appearance—that is, they self-objectify. Situations that induce a state of self-objectification (e.g., trying on a swimsuit, but not a sweater) have been found to increase women's body dissatisfaction (Tiggemann, 2001), and feelings of shame and restrained eating (Fredrickson, Roberts, Noll, Quinn, & Twenge, 1998). Further, due to the regulatory resources such monitoring requires, self-objectification impairs cognitive performance (e.g., Quinn, Kallen, Twenge, & Fredrickson, 2006). In addition, when women (but not men) are objectified, they are perceived more negatively (e.g., less competent) by others (Heflick & Goldenberg, 2009; Heflick, Goldenberg, Cooper, & Puvia, 2010). In light of the costs of objectification, it seems surprising that women objectify other women (Strelan & Hargreaves, 2005) as well as their selves. But as many women know, and as many others have witnessed on such television shows as Sex and the City and The Real Housewives, commenting on one another's appearance is a ritual that often accompanies women's interactions with one another (e.g., Knapp, Hopper, & Bell, 1984). Why might this be? We suggest that the objectification of women and the consequent self-objectification by
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women reinforces one of the ways they structure and interpret their social world, laying the foundation for self-worth that is rooted in the value placed on physical appearance. To the extent that this occurs, women who are high, relative to low, self-objectifiers may reap certain psychological benefits when exposed to images and evaluations that highlight physical appearance because they highly value this domain. This position is consistent with a number of social psychological perspectives. Self-verification theory (e.g., Swann, 1983), for example, asserts that people maintain a sense of predictability and structure by creating social worlds that enable others to see them as they see themselves, especially when the self-view is highly important and central to one's identity (Pelham & Swann, 1994; see also symbolic self-completion theory, Wicklund & Gollwizter, 1982). Further, research on self-affirmation theory (e.g., Steele, 1988) has demonstrated that the affirmation of important values makes people less defensive when the self is threatened (e.g., Sherman, Nelson, & Steele, 2000). Likewise, Crocker and colleagues' (e.g., Crocker & Knight, 2005) view of self-esteem suggests that experiences and feedback in domains in which one's self-esteem is contingent accounts for fluctuations in individuals' level of state self-esteem (e.g., Crocker, Sommers, & Luhtanen, 2002) and other indices of well-being (e.g., Crocker & Park, 2004). Thus, from at least three major social psychological perspectives, one could expect that people who place a high value on their appearance (i.e., high self-objectifiers) may obtain some measure of psychological protection from objectifying stimuli and experiences. Some findings within the objectification literature, though often de-emphasized or unexpected, are consistent with this suggestion. For example, Fea and Brannon (2006) found that women high in trait self-objectification exhibited less negative mood in response to an appearance compliment (comparable to a compliment about their character) from a female experimenter as compared to a neutral condition. Low self-objectifiers' mood did not differ as a function of conditions. Along these lines, in Gapinski, Brownell, and LaFrance (2003), women who were in a state of self-objectification experienced less negative mood after overhearing a confederate criticize their own weight as compared to an irrelevant conversation, presumably, the authors suggested, because this facilitated a favorable social comparison. Additionally, Breines, Crocker, and Garcia (2008) found that within-person increases in state self-objectification predicted decreased well-being except among women with high, and highly appearance-contingent, self-esteem, who reported increased wellbeing when self-objectifying. These findings suggest that woman who self-objectify may obtain a sense of validation from events that highlight the value of appearance. At the same time, there is contradictory evidence. Women who judge themselves on their appearance sometimes respond negatively to objectification (e.g., in Fredrickson et al., 1998, Study 1, women high in trait self-objectification responded most negatively to the objectification manipulation). Such inconsistency may result because objectification can have different consequences depending on, not just individual differences in the value placed on one's appearance, but situational needs for self-validation. Terror Management Theory and the Need for Validation According to terror management theory (TMT; Solomon, Greenberg, & Pyszczynski, 1991), people face a particularly trenchant need for selfvalidation in light of their awareness of personal mortality. TMT asserts that people obtain a sense of enduring meaning and significance by identifying with, and living up to, culturally-derived systems of value. Indeed, research supports the TMT hypothesis that awareness of death motivates individuals to try and validate their (most often positive) view of the self and culturally-derived identities (e.g., see Greenberg, Solomon, & Arndt, 2008 for a review).
Physical appearance has been shown to be one domain in which some people seek to affirm their worth and strive to meet particular standards in the face of mortality awareness. For example, reminders of mortality increase the desire to suntan, but only amongst those who derive self-esteem from having tanned skin (Routledge, Arndt, & Goldenberg, 2004). More generally, Grabe, Routledge, Cook, Andersen, and Arndt (2005) found that women self-objectified more than men when reminded of mortality, but not in a control condition, and somewhat unexpectedly, women objectified other women to a degree equal to men only following the provocation of death-related thought. The authors speculate that this is due to women more highly evaluating themselves on the basis of appearance. Accordingly, this study documented that after an MS but not control treatment, the importance of appearance to self-esteem predicted increased selfobjectification among men and women. On the basis of these findings, and evidence that people seek validation in the domains in which they derive meaning and value as a means to confront existential fears associated with death, we embarked on the current research. Current Research The research examined whether individual differences in selfobjectification moderate women's reactions to objectifying stimuli and feedback when faced with the awareness of death. Two hypotheses follow from the foregoing analysis. First, to the extent that the objectification of women validates an important aspect of high self-objectifying women's identity, after a reminder of mortality, they should respond more favorably to stimuli that feature the objectification of women than low self-objectifying women. Second, when death-related thought is active, high self-objectifiers should experience a boost to their self-esteem (relative to women low in selfobjectification) in response to receiving an objectifying compliment. Study 1: Media Reactions Study The Sports Illustrated Swim Suit Issue is a quintessential example of an appearance-oriented evaluation of women, and thus a picture of the magazine cover was used as the objectifying image for this study. Although it is expected that women would generally report relatively disapproving evaluations of such an objectifying depiction, we hypothesized that when mortality concerns are active, higher selfobjectification should promote more favorable reactions. As in Grabe et al. (2005), we did not expect high self-objectifiers to endorse such stimuli in the absence of a mortality reminder. Methods Participants One hundred and twenty-two Caucasian female college students (M age = 20.11, SD = 3.87) participated. Participants were restricted to Caucasian because the objectifying and non-objectifying images featured Caucasian women. Procedure Participants were recruited from introductory psychology classes and were awarded course credit for participation. They completed materials in small groups and were told they would be pilot testing materials for future studies. Materials Self-objectification Questionnaire (SOQ). Developed originally by Noll and Fredrickson (1998), the SOQ is designed to measure how important appearance is relative to the body's competence. Following Fredrickson et al. (1998), participants were asked to rank 10 items (5 appearance-related and 5 competence-related) from 0 “having the
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least impact” to 9 “having the greatest impact” on their physical selfconcept. As in previous research, self-objectification scores were calculated by subtracting the sum of the competence items from the sum of the appearance items.
Mortality Salience Prime. The MS manipulation consisted of 15 truefalse questions about either death (e.g., “I am very much afraid to die”) or watching television (e.g., “I like watching sit-coms”) used in prior research (e.g., Greenberg, Porteus, Simon, & Pyszczynski, 1995). These scales were used to make thoughts of death or a neutral topic salient. Delay/Affect. MS effects have been found to be strongest after a short delay, when death-related thought is accessible, but out of focal attention (e.g., Greenberg, Pyszczynski, Solomon, Simon, & Breus, 1994). Thus, mood was assessed with 60 items (PANAS-X, Watson & Clark, 1994) following the prime so that mortality concerns would no longer be in focal attention when participants were introduced to the dependent measure.1 Objectification Prime. Participants were randomly assigned to view one of three magazine covers, purportedly being pilot testing it for inclusion in other research on reactions to the media. Participants in the objectification condition received the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue (February 2, 2000) featuring Daniela Pestova. She was posing on the beach in a bikini bottom with only a barrage of beaded necklaces covering her breasts. The feature “story” on the cover consisted of seeing the models “bust out in 3D (glasses inside).” The nonobjectifying (competence) condition was also taken from Sports Illustrated (September 22, 2003), but featured the female soccer player, Mia Hamm, shown running and dressed in her soccer uniform. The feature story read “The reluctant superstar.” A third condition consisted of a cover from the magazine Coastal Living and showed a dining table overlooking the ocean. The feature story was titled “Relax at the shore.” Reactions to the image. Reactions to the magazine covers were assessed with four items (“How much did you like the magazine cover?” “Did you find it tastefully done?” “Did you find it offensive?” “Would you prefer to see more or less of such images in the media?”). Items were rated on a 9-point scale ranging from “not at all” to “very much” and “more” to “less” for the last item. The last two items were reverse scored and an average liking composite was created (α = .75).
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objectification and MS. This was followed by the 3-way interactions for the objectifying image with self-objectification and MS as well as the competence image with self-objectification and MS. The results revealed main effects for objectification, β = −2.07, SE= .27, t = −7.53, p b .001 (reflecting less liking for the objectifying than the neutral image) and competence, β = −.67, SE= .28, t = −2.44, p = .02 (reflecting less liking for the competence image than the neutral image). The only other significant effect was for the 3-way interaction between the objectifying image, self-objectification, and MS, β = −.10, SE= .05, t = -2.27, p = .03, R2 = .44. We also reformulated the dummy coding so as to compare reactions to the objectifying image to the image depicting competence, and replicated the above analyses. The results revealed, once again, a main effect in response to the objectifying image, β = −1.39, SE = .28, t = −5.02, p = .001 (reflecting less liking for the objectifying image than the competence image), and a 3-way interaction between the objectifying image, self-objectification, and MS, β = −.15, SE = .04, t = −3.75, p b .001, R2 = .45. In light of the evidence that the relationship between selfobjectification and MS varied as a function of the image, we examined the effects of self-objectification and MS within each image condition separately. For each condition, we entered self-objectification and MS, followed by the product term for the 2-way interaction. Within the objectifying image condition we observed the expected 2-way interaction, β = -.08, SE= .04, t = -2.07, p = .05 (Fig. 1). To further examine the significant interaction, simple slope tests were conducted. As predicted, increased level of self-objectification was significantly associated with increased liking only when mortality was salient, β = .07, SE= .03, t = 2.50, p = .02, (p = .84 when it was not). We also found a significant interaction between self-objectification and MS within the competence image condition, β = .07, SE= .02, t = 3.27, p = .002 (also Fig. 1). In this case, however, increased levels of selfobjectification were associated with decreased liking for the image when mortality was salient, β = -.04, SE= .02, t = -2.24, p = .03, and increased liking when mortality was not salient, β = .04, SE= .02, t = 3.27, p = .002. There were no significant effects within the neutral prime condition (ps N .39). Thus, although women generally reported liking the objectifying depiction of a woman least, as predicted, when mortality was salient, high levels of self-objectification were associated with increased liking of the image. Interestingly, high self-objectifiers also liked the competent image less than low self-objectifiers (analogously, low self-objectifiers liked it more) when mortality was salient. This fits with the overall analysis—when reminded of mortality, people are less
Results and discussion To test the hypothesis that self-objectification predicts liking for an image as a function of its objectifying content and the salience of mortality, a series of regression analyses were conducted. First, to determine whether the interaction between self-objectification and MS differentially affected liking for the objectifying, non-objectifying (competence), and neutral magazine cover, dummy variables for the objectifying image and the image depicting competence (each compared to the neutral image) were entered in the first step of the regression analysis along with centered self-objectification scores and mortality salience (dummy coded) (Aiken & West, 1991). In the second step, we entered the product terms representing the interactions of the objectifying image with self-objectification and with MS as well as the interaction of the competence image with self-
9 8 7 6 5
Death Control
4 3 2 1
Low High Low High Low High Self-Objectification Self-Objectification Self-Objectification
Objectification 1
We analyzed negative and positive mood scales of the PANAS-X to test whether any change in mood as a result of the mortality salience manipulation could have played a role in any hypothesized results. As in prior TMT research (see e.g. Goldenberg, Arndt, Hart, & Brown, 2005), there were no significant effects of mortality salience (and/or self-objectification) on self-reported mood.
Competence
Neutral
Note: Low and high self-objectification are plotted at 1 SD +/- from the mean. Higher numbers indicate greater liking.
Fig. 1. Evaluation of Magazine Cover as a Function of Objectifying Content, Mortality Salience, and Self-Objectification.
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favorable to that which does not support their view of the world (i.e., women as competent as opposed to objectified). That low selfobjectifiers liked the competence image more when mortality was salient depicts the same tendency. It is not clear why high selfobjectifiers liked the competence image more than low selfobjectifiers in the absence of MS. Finding no effects in response to the neutral image adds confidence to the interpretation that the instrumental variable in these effects is the objectified or competent depiction of women's bodies.
Body-esteem scale (BES) Subsequent to assessing self-objectification, participants completed the BES (Franzoi & Shields, 1984). Thirty-five items ranging in content from body parts (e.g., “biceps”), to body competence (e.g., “muscular strength”), to body sensation (e.g., “sex drive”), to body appearance (e.g., “appearance of eyes”) were rated from 1, have strong negative feelings about, to, 5, have strong positive feelings about. As in prior research (e.g., Goldenberg, McCoy, Pyszczynksi, Greenberg, & Solomon, 2000), we averaged across all items (α = .91).
Study 2: the objectifying compliment study The first study depicted a positive response to objectifying images for high self-objectifiers who were reminded of mortality. But responding favorably to portrayals of objectification is not the same as being objectified. In Study 2 we tested whether high self-objectifying women also respond favorably to being the target of objectification when deathrelated thought is accessible. As is situations described in the opening paragraph–commentary on Hillary Clinton wardrobe rather than competent performance–we had an experimenter deliver an appearanceoriented comment in the context of participants' salient competent performance. We hypothesized that high self-objectifying women (relative to low self-objectifiers), when faced with a need to validate their self-worth as a result of exposure to a death prime, would experience a boost to their self-esteem when the recipient of an objectifying compliment. To examine the specificity of our hypothesis to the importance of appearance, and not its valence, we assessed individual differences in body-esteem in addition to self-objectification.
Subliminal death manipulation The word-relationship task (see e.g., Arndt, Greenberg, Pyszczynski, & Solomon, 1997) served as a subliminal prime of death-related thought. Participants were told that the computer will present two words sequentially on the computer screen and they have to decide whether the two words are related (e.g., rose and flower) or not (e.g., fajita and sneaker) by pressing the right or left shift key, respectively. Participants were given four practice trials to familiarize themselves with the instructions. All words were presented in the center of the computer screen in 14-pt, Times New Roman font. Participants judged the first and third words presented, which served as forward and backward masks. Each word was displayed for 356 ms and the critical subliminal primes were presented for 28 ms. As in Arndt et al. (1997), in the subliminal death prime condition, the word death was presented between the two masks for 10 word-pair trials, whereas in the control condition, field (matched for word frequency and length) was used. Conditions were coded as group numbers so that the experimenter remained blind to conditions.
Method Participants Ninety-two female college (M age = 21.85, SD = 5.11) students participated. The sample was 43% Caucasian, 21% Hispanic, 19% Black, 10% Asian, and the remaining indicating “other” or “more than one ethnicity.”2 Procedure Participants completed the study individually in small cubicles. A female experimenter explained that they would be completing some personality measures and a word-relationship task on a computer. Additionally, participants were told that during the experiment they would need to get the attention of the experimenter to enter a password before continuing. All materials and instructions were presented on a 15-in. color monitor controlled by a Dell Optiplex GX620 IBM-compatible computer equipped with MediaLab (Empirisoft Corporation, 2008) display software. After the word-relationship task (that also subliminally primed mortality or a control topic), the computer informed the participant that it was scoring their accuracy and speed. After approximately 15 s, participants were prompted to hit “continue” and then the display read: “Based on your speed and accuracy, you scored in the 98th percentile.” Participants were instructed to let the experimenter know that they had received a score, so that she could record it. While recording the score, the experimenter provided objectifying feedback or not (described below). Materials Self-Objectification Questionnaire (SOQ) The 10-item SOQ was modified for the computer. Participants were instructed to rank the attributes by dragging each to a separate column and placing them in order of importance from top to bottom. 2 Because Study 1 included only Caucasian women, we examined whether controlling for ethnicity altered the significant pattern of results. It did not.
Objectifying feedback After receiving the score and opening the door to get the attention of the experimenter, participants were given either objectifying feedback or no feedback. In the objectifying feedback condition, the experimenter whispered “that is a really cute outfit” after writing down the participants' score. In the no feedback condition, the experimenter simply wrote down the score and instructed participants to continue with the study.
State self-esteem (SSE) After completing filler questionnaires, participants completed the social self-esteem subscale of the SSE (Heatherton & Polivy, 1991). We used the social self-esteem subscale because, compared to the performance and appearance subscales, social self-esteem is most likely to be affected in an interpersonal context (e.g., Heatherton & Polivy, 1991 found that social self-esteem was most influenced by concerns about public, but not private, failure) and the performance and appearance subscales would likely be confounded with the feedback manipulation. The subscale consisted of seven-items (e.g., “I feel inferior to others at this moment”) rated from 1, not at all, to 5, extremely. Items were reverse scored as appropriate and a composite was formed (α = .79).
Reactions and demographics Following Arndt et al. (2007), participants answered a series of questions to assess whether they were aware of the prime in the word-relationship task. They were asked whether they ever saw more than two words flashed at a time; if so, whether it was the same or a different word from the others they saw; to list what word may have been flashed between the two target words (an open-ended response); and finally, to assume that there was a word flashed, and select which word they thought it might have been. Participants then responded to demographic questions including age and ethnicity.
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Results and discussion To determine if responses to the awareness check items varied by condition, the closed-ended questions were subjected to Pearson chisquare tests. No significant effects emerged (ps N .21). In addition, no participants volunteered “death” or “field” in the open-ended question. Thus, consistent with previous research (Arndt et al., 1997), it appears that there was no (retrospective) awareness of the masked prime. To test the hypothesis that self-objectification predicts state selfesteem as a function of whether individuals received appearance feedback or not and the priming of mortality, we performed regression analyses. We also tested whether the hypothesized results were specific to selfobjectification, and not individual differences in body-esteem (bodyesteem and self-objectification were found to be negatively correlated, r=–.36, pb .001). Centered self-objectification and body-esteem scores were entered with the dummy coded mortality prime and feedback, followed by the interactions between self-objectification and the mortality prime, self-objectification and feedback, body-esteem and mortality prime, body-esteem and feedback, and mortality prime and feedback. This was followed by the interactions for self-objectification, the mortality prime, feedback and body-esteem, the mortality prime, and feedback in the last step. The results revealed a 2-way interaction between the mortality prime and feedback, β=–.56, SE=.26, t=–2.15, p=.03, in which the subliminal prime of death increased state self-esteem in the no feedback condition (β=–.40, SE=.20, t=–2.04, p=.05), but this effect was reversed and no longer significant when individuals received appearance-oriented feedback. This effect, however, was qualified by the predicted 3-way interaction between self-objectification, the mortality prime, and feedback, β=.06, SE=.02, t=2.81, p=.01, R2 =.32. We deconstructed this interaction by testing for simple interaction effects in the objectifying and no feedback conditions (Fig. 2). There was a significant interaction between self-objectification and the mortality prime in the objectifying feedback condition, β = –.03, SE = .01, t = -2.07, p = .04; within the no feedback condition this interaction was marginal, β = –.03, SE = .02, t = 1.94, p = .06. Critically, as indicated by the 3-way interaction, the pattern varied significantly between feedback conditions. As predicted, in the objectification condition, increased self-objectification was associated with increased state self-esteem when participants were exposed to subliminal death primes, β = .02, SE = .01, t = 2.05, p = .04, whereas there was no difference in the absence of such primes, p = .35. In contrast, when participants received no feedback, self-objectification did not moderate state self-esteem in either the death prime, p = .24, or control conditions, p = .12. The only other effect was a main effect for body-esteem, β = .58, SE = .13, t = 4.38, p = .001 (reflecting higher 5 4.5 4 3.5 3
Death
2.5
Control
2 1.5 1 Low High Self Objectification
Low High Self Objectification
Objectifying Feedback
No Feedback
Note: Low and high self-objectification are plotted at 1 SD +/- from the mean. Higher numbers indicate higher state self-esteem.
Fig. 2. State Self-Esteem as a Function of Objectifying Feedback, Mortality Prime, and Self-Objectification.
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state self-esteem as a function of higher body-esteem), but this variable did not interact with any of the manipulations in this analysis (ps N .25). Extending Study 1, individual differences in self-objectification interacted with an objectifying situation in the context of heightened death-related cognition. In this study the relationship was found in the context of an objectifying comment directed toward the participant. Moreover, these effects occurred independent of level of body-esteem (which did not interact with the mortality prime and objectifying feedback manipulations) suggesting that it was not the positivity or negativity of women's feelings about their bodies that influenced these reactions, but the degree that they valued their appearance. However, one must caution that although complimenting a woman's appearance in the context of successful performance can certainly be considered demeaning, it is not explicitly so. The women still received a compliment. Future research should address whether similar outcomes would be observed in the context of more negative or ambiguous objectification situations. In implicating self-esteem as an outcome, this research suggests that there is considerable similarity between trait self-objectification and appearance-contingent self-esteem. That the state self-esteem of high self-objectifiers was bolstered as a function of a compliment in this domain only when mortality concerns were activated, however, suggests that the two traits are not entirely synonymous. From our perspective, self-objectification represents a broader, more global, tendency to value appearance, with the implications for self-esteem representing one potential outcome. More research would be useful to better differentiate the two constructs. General discussion Across two studies a consistent picture emerged. Women's reactions to an objectifying image (Study 1) and an appearanceoriented compliment in the context of competent performance (Study 2) were affected by individual differences in self-objectification when thoughts of mortality were activated. Specifically, when thoughts of death were active, women who valued appearance over competence (i.e., high self-objectifiers) responded with increasingly favorable reactions to objectifying stimuli. Not only did they report liking the objectifying stimuli more (and the stimuli depicting a woman's body in a competent manner less), but they experienced a boost to their self-esteem. These findings suggest that the consequences of objectification are complex. Clearly, objectification has a number of deleterious effects on health and well-being (see Fredrickson & Roberts, 1997); however, these findings reveal that some women, under some circumstances, reap psychological benefits from objectification. To the extent that women judge themselves based on their appearance, being objectified may in certain circumstances offer validation of that central identity component, which in turn, augments their sense of self-worth. Such insights are derived from an integrative consideration of a number of different theoretical perspectives, including work on objectification, terror management, and the need for validation of the self. Again, the present results should not be taken to undermine the many documented ill effects of objectification for women, but they do reveal conditions under which women not only report liking objectifying images, but that this type of stimuli may function as a type of validation of the self. Breines et al. (2008) recently came to a similar conclusion, although they highlighted that it is important to be mindful that even though a positive impact can be documented, there may be negative effects not captured by the measures in the study. Further, as Crocker and Park (2004) have articulated, pursuing self-esteem through extrinsically validated contingencies, such as appearance, can have a number of consequences in and of itself; and thus, while there may be temporary boosts to self-esteem from validation of appearance as a value, it makes sense that there may be
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long-term deficits to other basic needs as a result. Finally, as Heflick and Goldenberg (2009; Heflick et al., 2010) have recently depicted, in addition to the intra-psychological consequences (good or bad) of objectification, there are also interpersonal consequences, including diminished perceptions of competence, warmth, and morality, when other people focus on their appearance. Although the studies reported here are not without limitations and leave questions for future research, they help to convey the complexity of reactions to objectification, which for the most part have been depicted with a simple “objectification is bad” approach. The findings help explain what often seems like, not only a tolerance for objectification, but women's efforts to facilitate it. For example, these findings shed light on why women comment on appearance so often to each other (e.g., Knapp et al., 1984), evaluate other women on the basis of their appearance (e.g., Strelan & Hargreaves, 2005), and engage in efforts to attract attention to their own appearance, even in domains where competence is clearly more relevant (Lehrman, 1997). As Goffman's (1959) seminal analysis makes clear, much of our social interactions involve “face-work” wherein we seek to not only present a desired self to others, but to validate the self that others present to us. Some people may thus act to objectify both self and others because they believe, accurately in some circumstances, that this may offer a validation of a person's strivings. In highlighting this psychological function of objectification and the complexity of reactions and motivations surrounding it, this work sheds new light on the pervasiveness of the phenomena, and in so doing, may ultimately be helpful in its undoing.
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