A Picture is Worth Twenty Words (About the Self): Testing the Priming Influence of Visual Sexual Objectification on Women's Self-Objectification

Abstract

Extending a major premise of objectification theory (Fredrickson & Roberts, 1997), this article tests the notion that visual depictions of sexual objectification of women's bodies can amplify women's state self-objectification (SO) in the short term. After deriving two operationalizations of sexual objectification that conformed to the tenets of objectification theory, results showed that women who were assigned to images of female models with high skin exposure (the first operationlization of sexual objectification) used more negative words to describe their appearance than participants assigned to control images. In addition, the body-display images produced more state SO and more negativity about one's appearance than images of women segmented into body parts (which represented the second operationalization). Implications for objectification theory and media priming effects are discussed.

Keywords:

• Body Image
• Media Priming Effects
• Self-Objectification
• Sexual Objectification

Notes

Content analyses have attempted to measure sexual objectification (Archer, Iritani, Kimes, & Barrios, 1983; Kolbe & Albanese, 1996; W. J. Rudman & Hagiwara, 1992; Sommers-Flanagan, Sommers-Flanagan, & Davis, 1993). However, we are specifically noting the lack of experimental work that has attempted to examine the impact of sexual objectification.

There were four examples in each of the two categories. However, each of the high-objectified versions of the body-parts category had two separate images to represent two different cropped-out body parts. Thus, there were eight total images (four in high version and four in low version) representing the body-display category and 12 images representing the body-parts category (four in high version and eight in low version).

After the first author, the order of authorship was determined alphabetically.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jennifer Stevens Aubrey

Jennifer Stevens Aubrey (PhD, University of Michigan, 2004) is an assistant professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Missouri–Columbia.

Jayne R. Henson

Jayne R. Henson (MA, Ball State University, 2004) is a doctoral student in the Department of Communication at the University of Missouri–Columbia.

K. Megan Hopper

K. Megan Hopper (MS, Illinois State University, 2006) is a doctoral student in the Department of Communication at the University of Missouri-Columbia.

Siobhan E. Smith

Siobhan E. Smith (MA, Louisiana State University, 2004) is a doctoral student in the Department of Communication at the University of Missouri–Columbia.