Responding to Sexual Objectification: The Role of Emotions in Influencing Willingness to Undertake Different Types of Action

Abstract

Women may respond to being sexual objectified in different ways, such as confronting the perpetrator, ignoring the action, blaming oneself or considering the action as flattering. However, there has been little research looking at what predicts each of these different responses. The present research assessed the role of emotions in promoting and deterring different anticipated responses to sexual objectification. In both Studies 1 (n = 189) and 2 (n = 187), female participants were asked to imagine themselves in a situation where they received an inappropriate sexual comment. Participants then rated the emotions they believed they would feel and how they thought they would act in the situation. I found that expecting feelings of anger resulted in women thinking they would confront the perpetrator (i.e., undertake an active response) and that expecting disgust negatively predicted the belief that they would view the action as flattering (i.e., anticipate a benign response). By contrast, expecting shame resulted in women believing they would blame themselves (i.e., undertake a self-blame response). Study 2 also found that expecting pride was positively associated with anticipating a benign response. These findings suggest that the emotions that women expect to feel influence their anticipated responses to sexual objectification. It is, therefore, important to consider the emotional reactions that women have to instances of sexual objectification.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1007/s11199-018-0912-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

From Gaze to Outrage: The Role of Group-Based Anger in Mediating the Relationship between Sexual Objectification and Collective Action

“…This non-finding may be due to participants viewing sexual objectification as highly illegitimate, as demonstrated by the mean of this variable prior to the transformation (4.29 on a 5-point scale). This outcome is in line with other research demonstrating that although some women are likely to view sexual objectification positively (Liss et al 2011), the majority of women view such actions negatively (Shepherd 2019). This negativity may have reduced the likelihood of perceived illegitimacy moderating the effects of sexual objectification.…”

“…Indeed, anger is felt when people make the appraisal that they have been subjected to a harmful illegitimate action (Smith and Lazarus 1993). For example, targets of sexual objectification are likely to feel angry when they view this action as harmful and illegitimate (Shepherd 2019;Swim et al 2001). This previous research has focused on feelings of interpersonal anger following sexual objectification.…”

“…Anger is an action-orientated emotion that motivates the individual to try to resolve the injustice (Frijda et al 1989). For example, feeling interpersonal anger toward sexual objectification motivates the target to confront the perpetrating individual (Shepherd 2019). Interestingly, when group-based anger is experienced, people are likely to confront the perpetrating group and are therefore likely to engage in some form of collective action (Van Zomeren et al 2008;Van Zomeren et al 2004).…”

“…It is important to note that objectification theory suggests that sexual objectification does not always result in self-objectification. Indeed, experiencing sexual objectification may elicit a variety of responses (Fairchild and Rudman 2008;Shepherd 2019). These studies focus on interpersonal responses to sexual objectification.…”

The impact of emotion‐based mass media campaigns on stigma toward cervical screening non participation

“…Interestingly, most research in this area has assessed influence of these components on shame in the moral domain. There is some research applying these concepts to education (Gausel, ), sexual objectification (Shepherd, ), and weight loss (Täuber, Gausel, & Flint, ). However, to our knowledge, there has been little research assessing the extent to which these factors predict screening behaviors.…”