Abstract
We aimed to assess if type of clothing caused self-objectification. This study was based on the framework of Objectification Theory. 120 Chinese female undergraduates aged 17 - 25 years were divided into 4 groups: revealing tight-fitting clothes, revealing loose clothes, full tight-fitting clothes, and full loose clothes. They were asked to wear clothes of the most suitable size in two settings, a private setting and a public setting. In both settings, we measured state self-objectification before the participants changed into their original clothes. It was indicated that wearing both revealing and tight-fitting clothes could produce female state self-objectification in the Chinese sociocultural environment. In addition, the public setting led to greater state self-objectification than the private setting. We demonstrate that clothing type is an important contributor to self-objectification of contemporary young women and extend the scope and application of Objectification Theory.
Highlights
IntroductionFredrickson and Roberts [1] proposed that the pervasiveness of sexual objectification in contemporary western societies (e.g., the representation of women in the visual mass media) gradually socialized women and girls to adopt an observer’s perspective of their physical self
Fredrickson and Roberts [1] proposed that the pervasiveness of sexual objectification in contemporary western societies gradually socialized women and girls to adopt an observer’s perspective of their physical self
The public setting led to greater state self-objectification than the private setting
Summary
Fredrickson and Roberts [1] proposed that the pervasiveness of sexual objectification in contemporary western societies (e.g., the representation of women in the visual mass media) gradually socialized women and girls to adopt an observer’s perspective of their physical self. The above research did not explicitly address the role of self-objectification, the theoretical framework provided by Objectification Theory [1] might be useful In contrast to these results, in an Australian sample of female undergraduates aged 18 - 46 years, Fuller-Tyszkiewicz et al [4] using a discrete choice conjoint design found that being fully clothed was most likely relative to the other two clothing levels (moderate and minimal) to prompt feelings of self-consciousness for participants, followed by moderately clothed, and minimally clothed, situations. There will be a significant interaction effect between the setting condition and the clothes condition on state self-objectification, whereby the difference between a private setting and a public setting will be greater in the revealing tight-fitting clothing, revealing loose clothing, and full tight-fitting clothing groups than in the full loose clothing group
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