That Community Becomes You? An Examination of Community Differences in Self-Objectification and Related Variables

ABSTRACT

The authors surveyed women from 2 communities: Anchorage, Alaska (N = 51), an urban area, and Haines, Alaska (N = 41), an isolated rural community. Participants from Haines scored lower on measures of self-objectification, internalization of sociocultural attitudes toward appearance, participation in beauty enhancement behaviors, and perceived normative beauty enhancement behaviors. Women from Haines also engaged in more empowering exercise (i.e., yoga and outdoor exercise). Internalization of sociocultural attitudes toward appearance mediated the relation between perceived normative beauty enhancement behaviors and self-objectification for women living in both communities. The current study suggests that communities may present opportunities to engage in activities that influence one's predisposition to self-objectify. The nonexperimental nature of this study, however, prevents the definitive establishment of the direction of causality between variables.

Keywords:

• eating disorders
• rurality
• self-objectification
• sexual objectification
• sociocultural attitudes toward appearance