Date of Award

5-2022

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts in Psychological Science

Department

Psychology

First Reader/Committee Chair

Donna Garcia

Abstract

When women are exposed to sexually objectifying advertisements, they experience many adverse effects such as increases in self-objectification and dehumanization of other women (Vaes, Paladino, and Puiva, 2011). Because these effects might be amplified by food advertisements in which the line between a woman’s body and a food item is non-discernible, we examined whether “women as consumable” advertisements lead women to implicitly self-dehumanize and experience reduced body satisfaction. Women (N=129) viewed a woman in hamburger advertisement. Participants were randomly assigned to one of three conditions, control condition (non-sexualized woman with a burger), sexualized condition (topless woman with burger), and edible condition (burger and naked woman are inseparable). After viewing and rating the advertisement, participants were given a cellphone and told to take a profile picture for a later task. The number of selfies they took before selecting their picture was used to indicate appearance satisfaction. Participants then completed a new IAT that assessed implicit self-dehumanization. They then filled out a series of scales that measured their satisfaction with the selfie they took, appearance self-esteem, and self-objectification. I predicted that women in the edible condition would have higher implicit self-dehumanization, take more selfies, report lower appearance self-esteem, and report higher self-objectification relative to the other conditions. My findings could extend the extant research to understand how explicit portrayals of women as objects for male consumption affect women’s psychological outcomes.

Download

  Contact Author

Share

COinS