Physical and psychological correlates of appearance orientation

Abstract

Objectification theory posits that the sexualization of women in our culture socializes them to ‘self-objectify’ — that is, to place considerable emphasis on their appearance and to have diminished confidence in competence-related activities. Recent studies have found that self-objectification is associated with a number of negative consequences for women such as symptoms of disordered eating, body shame, and poor math performance. The present study is the first to consider both physical and personality correlates of self-objectification. In a sample of young women, we investigated, using multiple regression procedures, whether certain physical and personality traits would predict the variance in a measure of appearance orientation. We found that narcissistic and neurotic traits were positively related to the dependent variable, and that women who had higher facial-attractiveness ratings were also more appearance focused, but only if they had low perfectionism scores. Results are discussed in the context of expectancy effects on personality development.