Those speedos become them: the role of self-objectification in gay and heterosexual men's body image

Objectification Theory proposes that membership in sexually objectifying Western societies gradually socializes women to adopt an observer's perspective on their physical self. This leads to negative consequences, including body shame and restricted eating behavior. The authors extend this framework to investigate a subgroup of men, namely gay men, who also exist in a subculture that emphasizes and values physical appearance. Study 1 investigated trait differences in self-objectification and body image among gay and heterosexual men. Analyses indicated that gay men scored higher on self-objectification, body shame, body dissatisfaction, and drive for thinness. In Study 2, the authors experimentally manipulated state self-objectification and found that for gay men, increasing state self-objectification resulted in greater body shame and dissatisfaction and more restrained eating. Together, these results offer strong support to Objectification Theory as a useful framework from within which to view the experience of gay men.     

Reducing the vividness and emotional impact of distressing autobiographical memories: the importance of modality-specific interference

Experimental analogues of post-traumatic stress disorder suggest that loading the visuospatial sketchpad of working memory with a concurrent task reduces the vividness and associated distress of predominantly visual images. The present experiments explicitly tested the hypothesis that interfering with the phonological loop could analogously reduce the vividness and emotional impact of auditory images. In Experiment 1, 30 undergraduates formed non-specific images of emotive autobiographical memories while performing a concurrent task designed to load either the visuospatial sketchpad (eye movements) or phonological loop (articulatory suppression). Participants reported their images to be primarily visual, corresponding to the greater dual-task disruption observed for eye movements. Experiment 2 instructed participants to form specifically visual or auditory images. As predicted, concurrent articulation reduced vividness and emotional intensity ratings of auditory images to a greater extent than did eye movements, whereas concurrent eye movements reduced ratings of visual images much more than did articulatory suppression. Such modality-specific dual-task interference could usefully contribute to the treatment and management of intrusive distressing images in both clinical and non-clinical settings.     

A Test of Objectification Theory in Former Dancers and Non-Dancers

In this study we aimed to test the complete model proposed in objectification theory (Fredrickson & Roberts, 1997) as it applies to disordered eating. Two samples of women, 50 former students of classical ballet and 51 undergraduate psychology students, completed questionnaire measures of self-objectification and its proposed consequences. It was found, as predicted, that former dancers scored more highly on self-objectification, self-surveillance, and disordered eating, with the differences on disordered eating accounted for by the objectification measures. For both samples, the relationship between self-objectification and disordered eating was mediated by body shame but not by appearance anxiety, flow, or awareness of internal states. It was concluded that the findings provide strong support for objectification theory.     

Affect and alcohol use: an ecological momentary assessment study of outpatients with borderline personality disorder

Alcohol use may be viewed as an attempt (albeit maladaptive) to regulate negative emotional states. We examined associations between both negative and positive affects and alcohol use in outpatient women diagnosed with borderline personality disorder (BPD; n=74), a prototype of emotional dysregulation, as well as a psychiatric control group of women with current depressive disorder (major depressive disorder/dysthymic disorder [MDD\DYS]; n=50). Participants completed randomly prompted reports of mood and alcohol use up to six times a day over a 28-day period using electronic diaries. Mean levels of either positive or negative affects did not distinguish between drinkers and nondrinkers in either diagnostic group. However, levels of both negative and positive affects were positively associated with alcohol use at the momentary level in BPD drinkers. More robust findings were obtained with respect to within-person affective variability, which was related to alcohol use in multiple ways. BPD drinkers showed higher within-person variability for most negative affects than BPD nondrinkers; MDD\DYS drinkers in general showed less within-person variability than MDD\DYS nondrinkers for negative affects. Multilevel lagged analyses for BPD drinkers indicated that alcohol use was positively related to variability in all affects, concurrently, but fewer significant effects of affect variability on the next day's drinking or significant effects of alcohol use on the next day's affect variability were observed. Among MDD\DYS drinkers, we observed more significant associations between affect variability on next day's alcohol use and of alcohol use on next day's affect variability. We discuss theoretical and methodological issues relevant to these findings as well as implications for future research.     

The Status of Media Effects on Body Image Research: Commentary on Articles in the Themed Issue on Body Image and Media

There is increasingly convincing evidence that media-promoted unrealistic thin ideals are associated with detrimental effects on women and girls' moods, body image, and eating patterns. Accordingly, media effects on body image have become an important area of research—one with theoretical and practical implications. The purpose of this article is to provide a brief introduction to the articles included in this themed issue of Media Psychology to clarify how they inform us and what remains to be investigated. As a set, the articles well exemplify current trends in this research area and contribute to an increasingly complex and sophisticated understanding of the role of the media in body image.     

Integration or Sealing-Over. A Pilot Study of Coping Strategies of Severely Traumatised Patients

This article is an attempt to begin to weave together Freud's work - on dreams here envisioned as the original model for virtual reality - and from Fromm's work - on the impact of the market on personality. The contributions of these two psychoanalysts provide a necessary dual foundation for an understanding of emerging aspects of human psychology that are evolving, at the beginning of the 21st Century, alongside the profound influence of the electronically driven global market. It is time for psychoanalysis to engage more fully in the study of cultural forces. While it is easy to disregard dreams, both in the general culture and of late in psychoanalysis itself, dreams and their interpretation have always been central in human living, in the development of religion and in the birth of psychoanalysis as our own secular religion. Dreams, in their disembodiment and in their fluidity of information transformations have served as one model for developments within cyber culture and virtual living. The destruction of nature is seen as an underlying theme in the development of compatible relativist-subjectivist philosophies and in the growth of cyberculture. Thus, Freud's insights into dreams and Fromm's into the marketing personality are both crucial to an understanding of major contemporary forces.     

The Relationship Between Women's Body Satisfaction and Self-Image Across the Life Span: The Role of Cognitive Control

The authors examined the relationship between body dissatisfaction and self-image across the life span. A sample of 106 women between the ages of 20 and 65 years completed questionnaire measures of body dissatisfaction, body importance, cognitive control over the body, self-concept, and self-esteem. The authors found that body dissatisfaction and body importance did not differ among the groups of women who were younger, middle aged, and older. Although body dissatisfaction was related to self-concept and self-esteem for the entire sample, the strength of that relationship reduced with increasing age and increasing perceptions of cognitive control. The authors concluded that the cognitive strategies of women who were older protect their self-concept and self-esteem from the influence of body dissatisfaction.     

Women's Body Figure Preferences Across the Life Span

Body figure preferences were examined in a sample of 180 women 18 to 59 years old. Participants were presented with Fallon and Rozin's (1985) set of 9 silhouette drawings ranging from very thin to very heavy. Women of all ages rated their current figure as significantly larger than their ideal figure, indicating the presence of body dissatisfaction across the life span. The degree of body dissatisfaction did not vary with age, marital status, educational level, or occupational status. However, in contrast to the younger women's responses and to the results of previous studies, women over the age of 30 years rated their ideal figure as significantly larger than the one perceived as most attractive to men. Therefore, conclusions concerning this issue that are based on studies of college undergraduates cannot necessarily be generalized to other groups of women.     

Ideal body shape preferences and eating disorder scores in adolescent women

Abstract

Using the body figure-preference ratings of Fallon and Rozin (1985), this study investigated the relationship between body shape preferences and eating disorder scores in a sample of adolescent women. These young women were found to express a large degree of body dissatisfaction, which was positively related to eating disorder symptomology. For the sample as a whole, there was no difference between ratings of the ideal figure and that perceived as most attractive. However, the Bulimia and Perfectionism scales did offer unique prediction of the ideal figure, over and above the Attractive figure. It was concluded that young women with high bulimic scores wish to be thinner than what they perceive as attractive. The present study suggests that what motivates this wish is the search for perfectionism.