Psychological scientist Rachel Calogero of the University of Kent, Canterbury hypothesized that women who self-objectify \u2014 valuing their appearance over their competence \u2014 would show less motivation to challenge the gender status quo<\/strong>, ultimately reducing their participation in social action.<\/p>\n In a survey study with undergraduate women, Calogero found that women who reported higher levels of self-objectification were less likely to have participated in gender-based social activism in the previous six months.<\/strong> This association was explained, at least in part, by increased justification of the gender status quo, supporting Calogero\u2019s original hypothesis.<\/p>\n A second study provided experimental support for these findings: Women who were primed to engage in self-objectification showed greater support for the gender status quo and reduced willingness to participate in social action that would challenge gender inequality.<\/p>\n Together, these studies suggest that self-objectification may be part of a wider pattern of behavior that maintains gender inequality.<\/p>\n Although previous research has examined the effects of self-objectification on women\u2019s self-evaluation, physical health, mental health, and cognitive performance<\/strong>, these studies are the first to examine its effects on women\u2019s engagement in gender-based social action.<\/p>\n The findings reported in these studies are limited to the university population studied, but Calogero believes that this research may have much broader implications.<\/p>\n \u201cGiven the number of opportunities for women to experience self-objectification in their daily lives, it is troubling that such experiences appear to thwart women\u2019s engagement in activism on their own behalf<\/strong>,\u201d Calogero writes.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" From the Association for Psychological Science press release via HealthCanal: Women who live in a culture in which they are objectified by others may in turn begin to objectify themselves…. Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[60],"tags":[46,12,36],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10918"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10918"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10918\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10970,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10918\/revisions\/10970"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"mirror,](\"http:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/mirror_aging.jpg\")
Women who live in a culture in which they are objectified by others may in turn begin to objectify themselves. This kind of self-objectification may reduce women\u2019s involvement in social activism<\/strong>, according to new research published in Psychological Science<\/em>, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.<\/p>\n