When do people “check out” male bodies? Appearance-focus increases the objectifying gaze toward men.

Bernard, Philippe; Gervais, Sarah J.; Holland, Arianne M.; Dodd, Michael D.

doi:10.1037/men0000122

Cited by 18 publications

(37 citation statements)

References 34 publications

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“…Whereas previous research showed that focusing on people's faces might temper the effects of appearance-focus and sexualization on cognitive objectification (Bernard, Gervais, Holland, & Dodd, 2018;Gervais, Holland, & Dodd, 2013;Nummenmaa, Hietanen, Santtila & Hyönä, 2012) and related dehumanization (Gray et al, 2011;Loughan et al, 2010), our results suggest that such intervention may not be efficient when faces are sexualized, especially through the use of eye makeup (e.g., mascara).…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 97%

The Face of Sexualization: Faces Wearing Makeup are Processed Less Configurally than Faces Without Makeup

Bernard

Geelhand

Servais

2019

rips

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Objectification Theory (Fredrickson & Roberts, 1997) suggests that women are reduced to their bodies and physical appearance in Western cultures, as illustrated by the pervasive use of sexualization in the media. Sexualization is a set of features that emphasize sexiness through a focus on body parts (e.g., women wearing revealing clothing) and face parts (e.g., flashy lipstick and "smoky eyes": Smolak, Murnen, & Myers, 2014). Content analyses of advertisements revealed that women's bodies and faces are frequently portrayed in a sexualized manner in visual media (Stankiewicz & Roselli, 2008). As a result, American women spend billions of dollars on cosmetics each year to meet these sexualized standards of beauty (Kumar, 2005), enhancing their perceived beauty and attractiveness (Graham & Jouhar, 1981). Cosmetics may also modulate impressions regarding women's personality, although research has found mixed results: Women wearing makeup are evaluated sometimes more positively (e.g., warmer), and often more negatively (e.g., less moral) (for a review, see Richetin, Huguet & Croizet, 2007). Beyond impression formation, very little is known regarding how makeup shapes the way people visually process women's faces. Indeed, most sexualization and objectification studies have focused on how people visually process and attribute mind to sexualized bodies appearing in mass media (for reviews, see Bernard, Gervais, & Klein, 2018; Ward, 2016). The present paper examines whether face sexualization −or the emphasis of sexiness through facial cues− changes the way people see ordinary women's faces. We suggest that face sexualization, akin to body sexualization, may trigger cognitive objectification. That is, that faces with makeup may be processed less configurally than faces without makeup. Cognitive Objectification: When People Are Cognitively Reduced to Their Parts Consistent with the tenets of Objectification Theory (Fredrickson & Roberts, 1997), research has shown that sexualized female bodies are rated as lacking in mind and moral status (e.g., Loughnan et al., 2010) and as possessing less agency (Gray, Knobe, Sheskin, Bloom, Barrett, 2011), less uniquely human traits (Vaes, Paladino, & Puvia, 2011), less competence, less warmth and less morality (Bernard & Wollast, 2019) than nonsexualized women. Departing from this line of research that envisioned objectification through a content-focused approach (i.e., diminished attributions of human-like traits to a person), a recent body of research has started to examine the cognitive processes underpinning objectification. A vast literature in psychology and neuroscience demonstrates that people process a stimulus either as a global physical entity (i.e., configural processing), as if the focus was on the forest, or as a set of parts (i.e., analytic processing), as if the focus was on the trees (Maurer, Le Grand, & Maurer,

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Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 97%

The Face of Sexualization: Faces Wearing Makeup are Processed Less Configurally than Faces Without Makeup

Bernard

Geelhand

Servais

2019

rips

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“…However, we did not examine sexual objectification with other sex dyads. Men sexually objectify women daily, but women can also be sexually objectified by women (Loughnan, Pina, Vasquez, & Puvia, 2013; Vaes et al, 2011), and men are sometimes sexually objectified by women and by men (Bernard, Gervais, Holland, & Dodd, 2018). Further research may test the effect of sexual objectification on retaliatory aggression with other sex dyads, such as when men are sexually objectified by men or by women, or women by women, and uncover the corresponding psychological mechanisms.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sexual objectification increases retaliatory aggression

Poon

Jiang

2020

Aggressive Behavior

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Two experiments were conducted to investigate whether sexual objectification increases retaliatory aggression serially through increased vulnerability and hostile intent attributions. Female participants were first exposed to the sexual objectification manipulation by receiving compliments from an online male partner (Experiment 1) or imagining a workplace objectification experience (Experiment 2). Afterward, their vulnerability and hostile intent attributions were assessed. Finally, they were given an opportunity to behave aggressively toward the source of objectification. The results of both experiments indicated that, compared with their counterparts in the control conditions, participants in the sexual objectification condition reported higher levels of vulnerability, hostile intent attributions, and aggression. Moreover, vulnerability and hostile intent attributions serially mediated the effect of sexual objectification on aggression. These findings highlight the critical influence of vulnerability and hostile intent attributions in understanding how sexual objectification increases aggression. K E Y W O R D S aggression, antisocial behavior, hostile intent attributions, sexual objectification, vulnerability

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“…Another complementary explanation is that target sexualization disrupts configural processing through an increased focus on sexual body parts. Behavioral research reveals that people fixate longer on sexual body parts and on the face less when looking at sexualized bodies (Nummenmaa et al, 2012) and when asked to focus on men's and women's physical apperance (Bernard, Gervais, Holland, & Dodd, in press; Gervais, Holland, & Dodd, 2013). Studies using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) also show that face-selective neural networks mediate the body inversion effect (Brandman & Yovel, 2010), explaining why headless bodies are related to a lack of configural processing (Minnebusch et al, 2009).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Neural Correlates of Cognitive Objectification

Bernard

Rizzo

Hoonhorst

et al. 2017

Social Psychological and Personality Science

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At an early stage of visual processing, human faces and bodies are typically associated with larger N170s when presented in an inverted (vs. upright) position, indexing the involvement of configural processing. We challenged this view and hypothesized that sexualized bodies would not be sensitive to inversion, thereby suggesting that they would be processed similarly to objects. Participants saw sexualized male and female bodies, nonsexualized male and female bodies, as well as objects in both upright and inverted positions while we recorded the N170. Results indicated that inverted (vs. upright) nonsexualized male and female bodies were associated with larger N170 amplitudes. In contrast, no N170 amplitude inversion effect emerged for sexualized male and female bodies or objects. These results suggest that sexualized bodies are processed similarly to objects and quite differently than nonsexualized bodies. We discuss the results and their implications in the light of the literatures in person perception and objectification.

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When do people “check out” male bodies? Appearance-focus increases the objectifying gaze toward men.

Cited by 18 publications

References 34 publications

The Face of Sexualization: Faces Wearing Makeup are Processed Less Configurally than Faces Without Makeup

The Face of Sexualization: Faces Wearing Makeup are Processed Less Configurally than Faces Without Makeup

Sexual objectification increases retaliatory aggression

The Neural Correlates of Cognitive Objectification

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