Relations with Self-Objectification and Eating Problems

Sex Roles (2009) 60:160–173 DOI 10.1007/s11199-008-9517-0

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Sexual Self-Esteem in American and British College Women: Relations with Self-Objectification and Eating Problems Rachel M. Calogero & J. Kevin Thompson

Published online: 3 August 2008 # Springer Science + Business Media, LLC 2008

Abstract The present study extended Objectification Theory (Fredrickson and Roberts, Psychol Women Q 21:173–206, 1997) to test the role of sexual self-esteem in models of disordered eating. Measures of self-objectification, sexual well-being, and disordered eating were completed by American (N=104) and British (N=111) college women. In Study 1, higher self-objectification was associated with lower sexual self-esteem, which, in turn, mediated the relationship between self-objectification and disordered eating in American women. In Study 2, path analyses indicated that self-objectification led to sexual self-esteem and body shame, which led to disordered eating in British women. This pattern of results was replicated, albeit weaker, when sexual self-competence replaced sexual selfesteem in the model. Discussion considers the significance of self-objectification and sexual self-esteem for women’s well-being. Keywords Self-objectification . Sexual self-esteem . Sexual self-competence . Disordered eating

Parts of this manuscript were presented at the International Conference of Eating Disorders in Barcelona, Spain, June 2006. R. M. Calogero (*) Department of Psychology, Keynes College, University of Kent, CT2 7NP Canterbury, UK e-mail: [email protected] J. K. Thompson Department of Psychology, PCD 4118, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL 33620-8200, USA

Introduction According to Objectification Theory (Fredrickson and Roberts 1997), women’s exposure to chronic sexual objectification can lead to chronic self-objectification, which, in turn, has been associated with a variety of negative consequences for women’s physical and mental well-being. The present research tests an understudied proposition of Objectification Theory which states that self-objectification may be associated with a variety of negative consequences for women’s sexual well-being. The central purpose of the present research was to provide preliminary, cross-sectional investigations of the relationship between self-objectification and women’s sexual wellbeing, and, in turn, to examine if this relationship predicts disordered eating among women from two different highly developed Westernized societies. This research aims to build on the extant literature by presenting two studies that conducted a new test of Objectification Theory as it relates to women’s sexual well-being and disordered eating. Being sexually objectified is a pervasive aspect of girls’ and women’s social lives in Westernized societies (Bartky 1990; Calogero et al. 2007; Huebner and Fredrickson 1999; Swim et al. 2001; Thompson et al. 1999). Indeed, despite the heterogeneity among women with regard to societal background, ethnicity, class, sexuality, and age, “having a reproductively mature body may create a shared social experience, a vulnerability to sexual objectification, which in turn may create a shared set of psychological experiences” (Fredrickson and Roberts 1997, p. 3). Experiences of sexual objectification occur at a very young age, with a disturbing 75% of American elementary school girls reporting experiences of sexual harassment (Murnen and Smolak 2000). Particularly insidious is the exposure to

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sexualized media environments that objectify women, which has been linked to the development of adolescent girls’ and boys’ notions of women as sex objects (American Psychological Association, Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls 2007; Grogan and Wainwright 1996; Harper and Tiggemann 2008; Peter and Valkenberg 2007; Ward and Friedman 2006). Moreover, these experiences of objectification endure in the lives of women, with research from a nationally representative cohort of middle-aged women in Britain demonstrating that body-related comments received in childhood continue to be associated with low body esteem across the life span (McLaren et al. 2004). Over a decade ago, Fredrickson and Roberts (1997) offered Objectification Theory as a framework for systematically testing how exposure to this chronic sexual objectification negatively and disproportionately affects multiple dimensions of women’s lives. According to Objectification Theory, encounters with sexual objectification socialize girls and women to internalize an objectifying gaze such that they come to view their bodies from an objectifying observers’ or third-person perspective instead of a first-person perspective, referred to as self-objectification. Importantly, this self-perspective does not merely reflect social comparison with others, or the fact that women simply do not like the size or shape of their bodies, but actually reflects a view of the body as belonging “less to them and more to others” (Fredrickson and Roberts 1997, p. 193) because women learn that it is normative for their bodies to be looked at, commented on, evaluated, and sexually harassed by others. This particular self-perspective is considered to be the primary psychological consequence for girls and women living in a culture that sexually objectifies women’s bodies. Women’s habitual monitoring of the body’s external appearance (i.e., body surveillance) is the primary manifestation of self-objectification and it is the proposed mechanism by which self-objectification exerts its negative effects on women’s mental and physical health (e.g., Fredrickson and Roberts 1997; Slater and Tiggemann 2002). Trait and state levels of self-objectification have been associated with a variety of negative emotional and cognitive consequences (i.e., body shame, appearance anxiety, diminished internal bodily awareness, and decreased opportunities for attaining peak motivational states) and increased mental health risks (i.e., depression, sexual dysfunction, and disordered eating). In particular, the pervasive sexual objectification of women, and resultant self-objectification, is one explanation for the disproportionate rate of eating disorders among women from Westernized societies (Calogero et al. 2005; Fredrickson and Roberts 1997; McKinley and Hyde 1996; Striegel-Moore and Smolak 2001; Thompson et al. 1999). Considerable empirical research has accumulated from North American and

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Australian samples of women to demonstrate that (a) selfobjectification directly contributes to particular subjective experiences among women, including body shame, appearance anxiety, and lower interoceptive awareness (e.g., Calogero 2004; Noll and Fredrickson 1998; Tiggemann and Slater 2001; Tylka and Hill 2004), and (b) selfobjectification directly and indirectly (via these subjective experiences) contributes to women’s disordered eating (e.g., Calogero et al. 2005; Fredrickson et al. 1998; Slater and Tiggemann 2002; Tiggemann and Slater 2001), thereby supporting several tenets of Objectification Theory. While this evidence highlights self-objectification and several of its related consequences as the critical psychological links between experiences of sexual objectification and eating disturbances (e.g., Fredrickson et al. 1998; Kozee et al. 2007; Moradi et al. 2005; Tiggemann and Slater 2001; Tylka and Hill 2004), there remains significant variance unaccounted for in these models of disordered eating. It is clear that other psychological mechanisms must be operating on the relationship between self-objectification and disordered eating. Given that Objectification Theory predicts that self-objectification triggers both poor sexual functioning and disordered eating (Fredrickson and Roberts 1997), the present research offers a preliminary exploration of the sexual consequences of self-objectification as an additional psychological mechanism related to women’s disordered eating. North American and British researchers have documented that women’s sexuality and sexual lives are intertwined with their identities as women, suggesting that sociocultural factors contribute to the development of women’s sexual self-image (Althof et al. 2005; Andersen and Cyranowski 1994; Lavie and Willig 2005; Oliver and Hyde 1993; Tiefer 2001). Fredrickson and Roberts (1997) proposed that selfobjectification may trigger a variety of negative consequences for women’s sexual well-being, including negative feelings about the sexual aspects of the self, sexual dissatisfaction, and/or sexual dysfunction. Indeed, because the sexual self almost invariably involves the body, selfobjectification may be particularly relevant to women’s sexual well-being. This proposal raises the possibility that the degree to which women like themselves as sexual beings, value their own sexuality, and accept their sexuality as part of their self-concept is another direct consequence of self-objectification. Recent empirical evidence from a sample of Australian women suggests that objectification theory is a valid framework for the study of women’s sexual functioning (Steer and Tiggemann 2008). Thus, it is possible that the more that women view themselves as sexual objects for men’s pleasure, the more likely they are to hold negative views of their sexual selves and sexual worth. Moreover, considerable empirical evidence supports a link between sexuality and eating disorder symptomatology

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among women in Western cultures (e.g., Evans and Wertheim 1998; Rodriguez et al. 2007; Wiederman 1996; Wiederman et al. 1996). In particular, there is evidence indicating that women who report higher body dissatisfaction and other eating disorder symptoms also report less comfort with their sexual selves. For example, several researchers have demonstrated that greater dissatisfaction with sexual performance, sexual encounters, and the body’s sexual parts is associated with more eating disorder symptomatology in samples of American women (Ackard et al. 2000; Cash 2002; Raciti and Hendrick 1992; Wiederman et al. 1996). Moreover, a positive relationship has been demonstrated between body satisfaction and the frequency of masturbation, at least among European American women, suggesting that more positive feelings about the body may be linked with more comfort with their sexual selves (Ellison 2000; Shulman and Horne 2003). More focused research examining both general and sexual components of self-esteem raises the possibility that sexual self-esteem is uniquely associated with body image and eating problems. The concept of sexual self-esteem, elaborated largely from models of global self-esteem (Gaynor and Underwood 1995; Rosenthal et al. 1991; Zeanah and Schwarz 1996), has been described as an individual’s sense of self as a sexual being, and includes the value that individuals’ place on their sexual identity and sexual acceptability (Hendrick and Hendrick 1983; Mayers et al. 2003; Snell and Papini 1989; Zeanah and Schwarz 1996). Beyond the fact that low general self-esteem is an established risk factor for eating disorders (Fairburn et al. 1999), researchers have shown that low general self-esteem mediates the relationship between sexually-objectifying experiences and eating disorder symptoms (Harned and Fitzgerald 2002; Mayers et al. 2003; Pitts and Waller 1993). More specifically, Raciti and Hendrick (1992) demonstrated a significant negative relationship between sexual selfesteem and disordered eating among American female undergraduates, such that women with lower sexual selfesteem also reported more disordered eating attitudes and behaviors. More than a decade later, Weaver and Byers (2006) demonstrated similar patterns in a large sample of Canadian college women, such that high body dissatisfaction and high situational body image dysphoria was associated with lower sexual self-esteem across a variety of social and non-social situations. In sum, this research raises the possibility that sexual self-esteem is uniquely related to eating problems. Like many psychological constructs, the construct of sexual self-esteem has been measured in a variety of ways. Several adapted versions of sexual self-esteem scales have been utilized in the literature, with many of them explicitly elaborated from models and measures of global self-esteem (Fortenberry et al. 2005; Gaynor and Underwood 1995;

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Katz and Farrow 2000; O’Sullivan et al. 2006; Rosenthal et al. 1991; Snell and Papini 1989; Wiederman and Allgeier 1993; Zeanah and Schwarz 1996). For example, O’Sullivan et al. (2006) created and utilized a modified version of Rosenthal et al.’s measure of sexual self-esteem, which was previously adapted from Offer (1969) and Marsh’s (1986) research on global self-esteem. O’Sullivan et al. indicated that they used seven of the original 18 items from Rosenthal et al.’s measure to assess girls’ esteem regarding their ability to attract a sexual partner. However, some of the sample items provided for this measure could be considered as representing a more general conception of sexual self-esteem (“I feel comfortable with my sexuality”) or even a different construct such as body satisfaction (“I am proud of my body”) instead of esteem related to the ability to attract a sexual partner. The point here is not to critique this particular measure per se, but rather to highlight a broader issue which is that the distinctions between different components of sexual self-esteem (and sometimes between different constructs) are often blurred across studies. Despite the obvious agreement that sexual self-esteem is an important aspect of women’s well-being, the research on sexual self-esteem is difficult to consolidate because of the variability and inconsistency in the measurement of the concept. The present research cannot circumvent these more systemic problems entirely. However, one clear intention of the present research was to assess self-evaluations about one’s sexuality generally without an emphasis on either sexual competence or in relation to a sexual partner. For example, many of the items in Snell and Papini’s (1989) sexual self-esteem subscale refer to one’s self-evaluation as a sexual partner. According to Wiederman and Allgeier (1993), “It may be argued that the definition of sexual esteem given by Snell and Papini (1989) is too narrow to allow for wide applicability (e.g., individuals who have not had a sexual partner)” (p. 99). Indeed, while these items may represent some aspects of the sexual self-concept, these items also assume some degree of interpersonal sexual experience to provide a basis for people’s evaluations of themselves on these dimensions. Moreover, a woman’s sexual self-esteem is arguably more complex and broader than her perception of her ability to sexually attract a partner. Thus, an important focus of the present effort was to measure sexual self-esteem as general feelings about the sexual self independent of actual interpersonal sexual experiences or sexual performance. Yet, it could be argued that feeling competent as a sexual partner may also be important in the relationship between self-objectification and disordered eating. That is, self-objectification may also be linked to individuals’ beliefs about one’s competency and skill as a sexual partner, which in turn, may trigger disordered eating. Since this is a new area of inquiry, it

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would be important also to test these relations using a more specific and well-validated measure of sexual competence in addition to the measure of sexual self-esteem. In the present research, two studies were conducted to test the relations between women’s self-objectification and sexual well-being as they relate to disordered eating. The goal of the first study was to extend existing research on Objectification Theory by testing the relationship between self-objectification and sexual self-esteem, and, in turn, the potential mediating role of sexual self-esteem in the relationship between self-objectification and disordered eating in a sample of American college women. That is, similar to the patterns observed among self-objectification, body shame, and disordered eating in prior research with American and Australian women (e.g., Noll and Fredrickson 1998; Tiggemann and Slater 2001), it was expected that sexual self-esteem would mediate the relationship between self-objectification and disordered eating, thereby providing an indirect link between these phenomena. That is, some individuals may come to feel that the sexual aspects of the self are undesirable and/or worthless in response to selfobjectification (i.e., lower sexual self-esteem), and thus come to feel that they want to change their size and shape more directly to improve their sexual self-image and/or be viewed as more sexually desirable. This idea that feelings of low sexual self-esteem and high sexual dissatisfaction may evoke control behaviors in the form of eating disorder symptoms to alleviate the negative feelings is not new (e.g., Polivy and Herman 2002; Troop 1998); however, to date, the role of sexual self-esteem in the context of Objectification Theory has not been examined. The goal of the second study was to extend Objectification Theory by testing a causal path model of selfobjectification, sexual self-esteem, and disordered eating (a) in a sample of women from a different Westernized society (Britain), (b) when the robust relations between selfobjectification and body shame with disordered eating have been accounted for in the model (e.g., Noll and Fredrickson 1998; Tiggemann and Kuring 2004; Tiggemann and Lynch 2001; Tiggemann and Slater 2001; Tylka and Hill 2004), and (c) when a different measure of women’s sexual wellbeing is included in the model instead of sexual selfesteem, which we refer to as sexual self-competence (Snell and Papini 1989; Wiederman and Allgeier 1993). It is important to highlight that while numerous studies have supported many of the propositions of Objectification Theory in samples of American and Australian women, there is a dearth of research available examining specific propositions of Objectification Theory in British women, despite the high levels of body dissatisfaction and disordered eating in response to sociocultural pressures that have been documented consistently in samples of British women (e.g., Charles and Kerr 1986; Dittmar 2005; Dittmar and

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Howard 2004; Grogan 2006; Ussher 1989), even in girls as young as 8 years old (Grogan and Wainwright 1996). One recent study has provided some preliminary evidence suggesting that British women do report comparable levels of self-objectification to American and Australian women and comparable relations between self-objectification and disordered eating with body shame as a significant mediator of these relations (Calogero, manuscript submitted for publication). Moreover, the British Medical Association has identified women’s exposure to objectified and ultra thin images of women in the British media as playing a significant role in the promotion of eating disorders (British Medical Association 2000). Despite these apparent similarities in exposure to sociocultural appearance pressures among women representing different highly developed Westernized societies (Calogero et al. 2007; Orbach 1993; Thompson et al. 1999), the research findings from American and/or Australian samples of women, which have dominated the objectification literature, cannot necessarily be generalized to women in other Westernized societies for which these objectification processes may apply. Such tests of the proposed pathways in women representing two different Westernized societies are important for increasing our theoretical understanding of objectification processes and consequences. Therefore, the tests of the proposed relations in the second study were conducted with a sample of British college women. Study 1 The first study attempted to combine research in women’s self-objectification, sexual well-being, and disordered eating to provide a novel test of the relationship between selfobjectification and sexual well-being. There were two aims of this study. The first aim was to test the zero-order correlations between sexual self-esteem, self-objectification, and disordered eating in a sample of American college women. The second aim was to test a mediational model of self-objectification, sexual self-esteem, and disordered eating in a sample of American college women in accordance with the steps outlined by Baron and Kenny (1986) for testing mediational models using a series of multiple regression analyses (see Fig. 1). Five hypotheses were tested in the present study: Hypothesis 1: Sexual self-esteem will be negatively correlated with self-objectification and disordered eating whereas self-objectification will be positively correlated with disordered eating. Hypothesis 2: Self-objectification (the initial variable) will predict disordered eating (the outcome variable).

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Sexual Self-Esteem SelfObjectification

Disordered Eating

Fig. 1 Proposed pathways for the mediational model with selfobjectification, general sexual self-esteem, and disordered eating in Study 1. Solid lines indicate direct links between variables whereas dashed lines indicate indirect links between variables.

Hypothesis 3: Self-objectification will predict sexual selfesteem (the mediator). Hypothesis 4: Self-objectification will predict disordered eating when sexual self-esteem is controlled. Hypothesis 5: Sexual self-esteem will partially mediate the relationship between self-objectification and disordered eating.

Method Participants One hundred four undergraduate women from a north eastern American university were recruited from undergraduate psychology courses and given course credit for their participation. The power to detect a large effect (R2 =.40) at an alpha level of .01 with a sample size of 104 is approximately 1.00 (Cohen 1988, 1992). Therefore, this sample size was considered to have sufficient power to detect actual effects of the variables tested in this research. Mean age was 18.63 years (SD=1.14), ranging from 17 to 27. Mean self-reported weight was 59.51 kg (SD=9.44) or 131.20 lbs (SD=20.81), ranging from 45.36 to 90.72 kg (100 to 200 lbs). Mean self-reported height was 1.66 m (SD=.07) or 65 in. (SD=2.76), ranging from 1.50 to 1.88 m (59 to 74 in.). Mean body mass index (BMI) was 21.71 (SD=3.53). The ethnic composition of the sample included 87% European American (n=91), 10% African American (n=10), and 3% Asian American (n=3) women. Measure Background information Participants provided information about age, ethnicity, year in school, weight, and height. Body mass index (BMI) was calculated for each participant with the formula kilogram/square meters (Garrow and Webster 1985). Disordered eating The Drive for Thinness, Bulimia, and Body Dissatisfaction subscales of the Eating Disorder

Inventory-2 (Garner 1991) were used, in combination, to tap a general construct that focuses on attitudes that are associated with a greater risk for eating disorders. The Drive for Thinness subscale contains seven items that assess fear of weight gain and weight preoccupation (e.g., “I am terrified of gaining weight”). The Bulimia subscale contains seven items that assess the tendency to engage in and/or think about engaging in uncontrollable episodes of overeating (e.g., “I stuff myself with food”). The Body Dissatisfaction subscale contains nine items that assess dissatisfaction with specific body parts and overall weight (e.g., “I think that my hips are too big”). Participants were asked to rate each item from 1 (never) to 6 (always). All 23 items were summed to create a composite measure of disordered eating, with higher scores indicating more disordered eating. In this study, the entire range of possible scores was used as recommended for non-clinical samples (Schoemaker et al. 1994). This composite measure of eating disorder symptomatology is a well-known method for assessing disordered eating in non-clinical samples, demonstrating good psychometric properties (Adkins and Keel 2005; Tiggemann and Lynch 2001; Welch et al. 1988). High internal reliability was demonstrated in the present study (α=.95). Self-objectification The Body Surveillance subscale of the Objectified Body Consciousness Scale (McKinley and Hyde 1996) was used to measure the degree to which individuals view their bodies as an outside observer, thus focusing more on how their bodies look than on how their bodies feel. Participants were asked to rate 8 items from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree), such as “I rarely worry about how I look to other people” (reverse scored), “I am more concerned with what my body can do than how it looks” (reverse scored), “During the day, I think about how I look many times”. Higher scores indicate frequent monitoring of one’s appearance and thoughts about how the body looks. High internal reliability (α=.89) and good construct validity have been demonstrated (McKinley and Hyde 1996). High internal reliability was demonstrated in the present study (α=.88). Based on findings that incorporated two different measures of self-objectification as predictors of disordered eating, Tiggemann and Slater (2001) have recommended using McKinley and Hyde’s specific measure of body surveillance as the manifestation of self-objectification opposed to the general measure of self-objectification (see Noll and Fredrickson 1998) when testing for unique relations with eating disorder constructs. Sexual self-esteem A modified version of Global Self-Esteem Scale (Rosenberg 1986) measure the degree to which individuals feel negatively about the sexual aspects of their

Rosenberg’s was used to positively or self-concept.

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Table 1 Zero-order correlations among Study 1 variables.

BMI SSE SO M (SD)

BMI

SSE

SO

DE

– – – 21.71 (3.53)

−.20* – – 2.09 (.46)

.17 −.56** – 3.95 (1.02)

.36** −.50** .67** 3.03 (.87)

Higher scores indicate higher levels of each construct. SSE sexual self-esteem (1–4); SO self-objectification (1–7); DE disordered eating (1–6); BMI body mass index *p