title: Self-subjugation among women: exposure to sexist ideology, self-objectification, and the protective function of the need to avoid closure.
abstract: Despite extensive evidence confirming the negative consequences of self-objectification, direct experimental evidence concerning its environmental antecedents is scarce. Incidental exposure to sexist cues was employed in 3 experiments to investigate its effect on self-objectification variables. Consistent with system justification theory, exposure to benevolent and complementary forms of sexism, but not hostile or no sexism, increased state self-objectification, self-surveillance, and body shame among women but not men in Experiment 1. In Experiment 2, we replicated these effects and demonstrated that they are specific to self-objectification and not due to a more general self-focus. In addition, following exposure to benevolent sexism only, women planned more future behaviors pertaining to appearance management than did men; this effect was mediated by self-surveillance and body shame. Experiment 3 revealed that the need to avoid closure might afford women some protection against self-objectification in the context of sexist ideology.
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology, University of Kent, Canterbury, England. rcalogero@vwc.edu
authors.forename: Rachel M
authors.initials: RM
authors.lastname: Calogero
authors.forename: John T
authors.initials: JT
authors.lastname: Jost
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001828:Body Image; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology; D003463:Cues; D005260:Female; D005783:Gender Identity; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011287:Prejudice; D012649:Self Concept; D012737:Sex Factors; D012752:Shame; D013240:Stereotyping; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D006113:United Kingdom; D055815:Young Adult