Interacting Like a Body: Objectification Can Lead Women to Narrow Their Presence in Social Interactions

摘要

The present experiment tested the impact of sexual objectification on women's behavior in social interactions. We predictedthat when objectified, women would narrow their social presence by spending little time talking, particularly when interactingwith men. Participants (males and females) gave an oral introduction of themselves to an alleged interaction partner (maleor female). Objectification was manipulated by having participants believe their bodies were either visually inspected or notinspected during this introduction. Specifically, participants introduced themselves through a closed-circuit device in one ofthree conditions: body (videotaped from the neck down), face (videotaped from the neck up), or audio (no videotaping).Women who were in the body condition and thought they were interacting with men spent less time talking than participantsin all other groups. In addition, the majority of women disliked the body condition, indicating that they found having their bodiesgazed at aversive. Implications for women's behavior in mixed-sex contexts are discussed.