Self-objectification theory posits and past research has found that Caucasian women's body image is negatively affected by a stigma of obesity and sociocultural norm of thinness that leads women to self-focus from a critical external perspective. However, research in this area is limited by its methodology and the restricted demographic composition of its study participants. The current study tested 176 men and 224 women of Caucasian, African American, Hispanic, and Asian American descent in a situation that induced a state of self-objectification (e.g., wearing a one-piece Speedo bathing suit) or that served as a control condition (e.g., wearing a sweater). Contrary to previous research, when put in a self-objectifying situation, men and women of every ethnicity experienced negative outcomes (e.g., lower math performance) that parallel those previously found for Caucasian women.
There are several existing typologies of dual-earner couples focused on how they dually manage work and family; however, these all assume that couples can outsource childcare during normal work hours and that work is largely conducted outside of the home. Early attempts to control COVID-19 altered these assumptions with daycares/schools closing and the heavy shift to remote work. This calls into question whether couples tended to fall back on familiar gendered patterns to manage work and family, or if they adopted new strategies for the unique pandemic situation. We addressed this question using a sample of 274 dual-earner couples with young children. We content coded couples' qualitative responses about their plans for managing childcare and work commitments and used these codes in a latent class analysis to identify subgroups. Seven classes were identified, with 36.6% of the sample using strategies where women did most or all childcare, 18.9% of the sample using strategies that were not clearly gendered or egalitarian, and 44.5% of the sample using unique egalitarian strategies. We also obtained data from 133 of these couples approximately 7 weeks later regarding their well-being and job performance. Results suggested that women in the Remote Wife Does It All class had the lowest well-being and performance. There were nuanced differences between the egalitarian strategies in their relationships with outcomes, with the Alternating Days egalitarian category emerging as the overall strategy that best preserved wives' and husbands' well-being while allowing both to maintain adequate job performance.
Using a customer service paradigm, the authors extended the justification-suppression model (JSM) of prejudice (C. S. Crandall & A. Eshleman, 2003) to include contemporary, covert forms of discrimination and to identify a discrimination remediation mechanism. Overall, the results of 3 studies revealed that actual and confederate obese shoppers in high-prejudice justification conditions faced more interpersonal discrimination than average-weight shoppers. Furthermore, Studies 1 and 2 demonstrate that adopting strategies that remove perceivers' justifications for discriminating against obese individuals (i.e., the controllability of weight) decreases the incidence of interpersonal discrimination. Additionally, Study 3 demonstrates negative bottom-line consequences of interpersonal discrimination for organizations (e.g., customer loyalty, purchasing behavior). Together, these studies confirm that the JSM applies to covert forms of discrimination, show the importance of examining subtle discrimination, and offer a mechanism for theory-driven strategies for the reduction of covert forms of discrimination.
A naturalistic field study investigated behavior toward pregnant (vs. nonpregnant) women in nontraditional (job applicant) and traditional (store customer) roles. Female confederates, who sometimes wore a pregnancy prosthesis, posed as job applicants or customers at retail stores. Store employees exhibited more hostile behavior (e.g., rudeness) toward pregnant (vs. nonpregnant) applicants and more benevolent behavior (e.g., touching, overfriendliness) toward pregnant (vs. nonpregnant) customers. A second experiment revealed that pregnant women are especially likely to encounter hostility (from both men and women) when applying for masculine as compared with feminine jobs. The combination of benevolence toward pregnant women in traditional roles and hostility toward those who seek nontraditional roles suggests a system of complementary interpersonal rewards and punishments that may discourage pregnant women from pursuing work that violates gender norms.
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