“That Swimsuit Becomes You: Sex Differences in Self-Objectification, Restrained Eating, and Math Performance” Melissa Eells

Objectification Theory – “…women, more so than men, are portrayed as though their bodies were capable of representing them.” [Duncan, 1990; Fromme &Beam, 1974; Gardner, 1980; Goffman, 1979; Soley &Kurzbard, 1986; Frederickson & Roberts, 1997; Van Zoonen, 1994; Bartkey, 1990; Henley, 1977] – …posits that these objectifying views are internalized, and, in anticipation of external judgement, women learn to judge themselves. This is called: SELF-OBJECTIFICATION

Self-Objectification can be either: – TRAIT Personality trait, e.g. how chronically focused on appearance are you? – STATE When a specific context causes you to be self- conscious, in an evaluative way

The Problem! Consequences of Self-Objectification this vigilant self-monitoring drains mental energy and consumes attentional resources from important activities manifested in diminished mental performance Increased shame and anxiety Disordered eating

Experiment 1: Hypothesis Self-Objectification produces BODY SHAME, which in turn predicts RESTRAINED EATING 1.Trait self-objectification measured to determine individual baseline 2.State self-objectification manipulated by randomly assigning participants to experimental condition (either swimsuit or sweater) 3.BODY SHAME measured in disguised questionnaire 4.RESTRAINED EATING measured in “consumer report taste test” N = 72 (all women)

BODY SHAME Variables Explanatory Categorical: trait self-objectification and experimental condition Response Quantitative: body shame

RESTRAINED EATING Given 2 cookies and asked to evaluate. – Experimenters wanted to measure how much participants ate to determine relationship between self-objectification, shame and eating. Results - three response categories – True restraint (ate less than ½ of 1 cookie) – Symbolic restraint (more than ½, but still less than 1) – No restraint (more than 1)

Before we can look at the relationship between s-o, body shame, and eating… Potential Confounding Variable? – People who liked the cookie more would eat more? – To avoid this, researchers needed to show that there is no relationship between amount eaten and how much they cookie was liked

Mean liking of cookie (µ) = 7 I = 3 (restraint, symbolic restraint, no restraint) N = 72 Null Hypothesis µ r = µ s = µ n Alternative Hypothesis Not all the µ are equal P(2, 69) = 2.5, p =.0895

Can we reject the Null Hypothesis? – No! So we accept µ r = µ s = µ n Since there is no relationship between µ, we can rule out mean liking as a confounding variable Conclude that amount consumed is due to other factors (body shame)

Results Highest body shame level most often predicted (57%) symbolic restraint group

Experiment 2: Hypothesis Self-Objectification diminishes math performance Direct Response to Experiment 1 – Replicate findings – Extend tests into domain of attention and mental performance – Address bias (of not representing whole population) by testing men

Experiment 2: Hypothesis Self-Objectification diminishes math performance 1.Trait self-objectification measured to determine individual baseline 2.State self-objectification manipulated by randomly assigning participants to experimental condition (either swimsuit or sweater) 3.Body Shame measured in disguised questionnaire 4.NEW: test of math performance (GMAT) N = 82 (40 men, 42 women)

Results State Self-Objectification Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) used to determine validity of relationship between experimental condition and self- objectification. F(1, 73) = 8.15, p <.01 – Is there a relationship? YES!

Results Body Shame ANCOVA again (BMI covariate) Categorical explanatory variables – Experimental condition – Trait self-objectification – sex Significant relationships established between each three variables and body shame

Significant relationships established between the explanatory variables and body shame Self-objectification as explanatory variable – F(1, 73) = 4.50 and p <.05 Experimental Condition as explanatory variable – F(1, 73) = 6.58 and p <.05 Gender split – For Men, trait self-objectification was explanatory F(1, 35) = 7.19 and p <.05 – For Women, most significant relationship found between experimental condition and body shame F(1, 37) = 5.83 and p <.05

Math Performance To test the hypothesis that self-objectification would lead to performance decreases, they analyzed math scores using ANCOVA

Results No significant relationship between experimental condition and math score emerged for men. For relationship between experimental condition and math score for women F(1, 32) = 3.94, p =.056 I = 2; What are the 2 groups? » Sweater or swimsuit Do we reject Null Hyp. and conclude that there is a relationship? » YES! Women in the swimsuit condition performed significantly worse on the math test than women in the sweater.

“The men in Experiment 2 served as a comparison group to help establish that consequences of self-objectification are not part of human nature more generally but rather are specific to women”

Consequences of Type I Error For relationship between experimental condition and math score for women F(1, 32) = 3.94, p =.056 We rejected the Null Hypothesis and concluded that there is a relationship BUT if there is no relationship… – Incorrect research conclusion, misleading

Consequences of Type II Error Cookie liking test P(2, 69) = 2.5, p =.0895 – Did not reject Null Hypothesis – Concluded there was no relationship between amount of cookie eaten and how much they liked the cookie If Type II Error had occurred, and the researchers failed to reject the Null Hypothesis even thought it was false, then – Cookie liking would have been a confounding variable – Possible incorrect conclusions to entire study! Amount eaten would not have been due to body shame, but to how much they liked the cookie!

BIAS? Participants were undergraduates at the University of Michigan and Duke University – Non-representative of the larger population?