Abstract
Objectification theory suggests that sexualization has significant dehumanizing consequences for how perceivers see women. To date, research has mostly documented how sexualized bodies in the mass media are objectified and dehumanized. The purpose of the present work was to test the novel cosmetics dehumanization hypothesis (CDH), that is, that subtler manifestations of sexualization, such as heavy makeup, might influence the way people attribute humanness-related traits to women. Across four experiments, 1000 participants (mostly from the United Kingdom and United States) were asked to evaluate women’s faces with or without heavy makeup. Consistent with the CDH, results showed that faces with makeup were rated as less human while using complementary indicators of dehumanization: They were perceived as possessing less humanness, less agency, less experience (Experiment 1), less competence, less warmth, and less morality (Experiments 2–4) than faces without makeup. This pattern of results was observed for faces of both models (Experiments 1–2) and ordinary women (Experiments 3–4). In Experiment 4, we manipulated the part of the face that wore makeup (eye makeup vs. lipstick) and found that faces with eye makeup were attributed the least amount of warmth and competence. A meta-analysis based on Experiments 2–4 confirmed the robustness of the findings, which were not moderated by either participant gender or sexual orientation. Whereas prior studies suggested that a focus on faces may serve as an antidote for objectification and related dehumanization, the present set of experiments indicates that this strategy might not always be effective.
Highlights
Human bodies are sometimes cognitively objectified, i.e., processed less configurally and more analytically, in a way that resembles how most objects are perceived
A vast literature in psychology and neuroscience demonstrates that people process a stimulus either as a global physical entity, as if the focus was on the forest, or as a set of parts, as if the focus was on the trees
Most research on objectification and sexualization has documented how body sexualization triggers cognitive objectification and related dehumanization, showing that sexualized bodies are less likely to be processed as wholes and more likely to be processed in an analytic, part-based manner, in a way that resembles how most objects are typically processed
Summary
The Face of Sexualization: Faces Wearing Makeup are Processed Less Configurally than Faces Without Makeup. In regards to faces wearing makeup, face parts were recognized well when presented in isolation vs in the context of whole faces; evidence of a lower configural processing. Such enhanced recognition of parts in the presence of the whole stimulus (vs in isolation) is typically observed for human faces and bodies, not for objects (for a review, see Maurer et al, 2002) Using this paradigm, Gervais, Vescio, Maass, Förster and Suitner (2012) presented images of fully clothed bodies and found that male sexual body parts were better recognized in the context of the whole body rather than in isolation. Concerning faces without makeup, we expected that recognition performance would be improved when face parts are presented in a whole face context vs in isolation, evidencing configural processing. We agree to share on request anonymized data files from this research with other qualified professionals in order to confirm the conclusions of the research
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