Abstract
Sexual objectification – perceiving or treating a woman as a sexual object – is a widespread phenomenon. Studies on sexual objectification and its consequences have grown dramatically over the last decades covering multiple and diverse areas of research. However, research studying sexual objectification might have limited internal and external validity due to the lack of a controlled and standardized picture database. Moreover, there is a need to extend this research to other fields including the study of emotions. Therefore, in this paper we introduce the SOBEM Database, a free tool consisting of 280 high-resolution pictures depicting objectified and non-objectified female models expressing a neutral face and three different emotions (happiness, anger, and sadness) with different intensity. We report the validation of this dataset by analyzing results of 134 participants judging pictures on the six basic emotions and on a range of social judgments related to sexual objectification. Results showed how the SOBEM can constitute an appropriate instrument to study both sexual objectification per se and its relation with emotions. This database could therefore become an important instrument able to improve the experimental control in future studies on sexual objectification and to create new links with different fields of research.
Highlights
Sexual objectification is a pervasive phenomenon, in which the negative consequences impact the everyday lives of women
We present the Sexual Objectification and Emotion Database (SOBEM), a set of 280 pictures able to manipulate female sexual objectification together with the emotional expression of both objectified and non-objectified female targets
We investigated some of the social judgments that have shown to be central in the literature on sexual objectification or to be correlated with this phenomenon
Summary
Sexual objectification is a pervasive phenomenon, in which the negative consequences impact the everyday lives of women. When a woman is objectified, she is considered only for her appearance and bodily functions, often seen as an instrument without regard for her personality and dignity (Fredrickson & Roberts, 1997). In the case of sexual objectification, this someone is typically a woman whose body or body parts are seen as mere instruments, separated from her personality and individuality, regarded as if they were capable of representing her (Fredrickson & Roberts, 1997). There is evidence that men can be sexually objectified (e.g., Rohlinger, 2002), the phenomenon is strongly connected to the female body and most of the existing literature focused on the sexual objectification of women. A plethora of studies showed how sexual objectification implies the denial of humanity and human
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