title: The sexualized-body-inversion hypothesis revisited: valid indicator of sexual objectification or methodological artifact?
abstract: Recently, Bernard, Gervais, Allen, Campomizzi, and Klein (2012) reported that individuals were less able to recognize inverted vs. upright pictures of sexualized men as compared to women. Based on their formulation of the sexualized-body-inversion hypothesis (SBIH) it was concluded that sexualized women as compared to men are perceived in a more object-like manner supporting sexual objectification (SO) of females - independent from observer gender. We challenge this interpretation and hypothesize that the originally reported effect is the result of a methodological artifact due to gender-symmetry and stimuli setup-symmetry confounds in the original stimulus set. We tested this theoretically more parsimonious account in a methodologically stricter and extended conceptual replication of the putative SO-effect. Results from two studies showed that the original stimulus set indeed suffered from symmetry confounds and that these are necessary boundary-conditions in order for the hypothetical SO-effect to occur. It is concluded that the SBIH as postulated by Bernard et al. (2012) is based on a methodological artifact and cannot be related to SO but symmetry detection.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Social and Legal Psychology, University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany; Institute for Health and Behaviour, INSIDE Research Unit, University of Luxembourg, Walferdange, Luxembourg. Electronic address: alexander.schmidt@uni.lu.
authors.forename: Alexander F
authors.initials: AF
authors.lastname: Schmidt
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Social and Legal Psychology, University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany.
authors.forename: Lisa M
authors.initials: LM
authors.lastname: Kistemaker
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D005556:Form Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D018594:Human Body; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology*; D012727:Sex Characteristics; D012938:Social Perception
keywords: Artifact; Body-inversion effect; Object perception; Person perception; Sexual objectification