Objectification in Popular Music Lyrics: An Examination of Gender and Genre Differences

Flynn, Mark A.; Craig, Clay; Anderson, Christina; Holody, Kyle J.

doi:10.1007/s11199-016-0592-3

Cited by 43 publications

(44 citation statements)

References 58 publications

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“…First of all, there is a literature suggesting that music can impact both explicit and implicit self-esteem in general (Elvers, Fischinger, & Steffens, 2018), with women in particular using music for empowerment and personal growth (Travis, Bowman, Childs, & Villanueva, 2016). Content analyses suggest that women's bodies are routinely objectified in music lyrics (Aubrey & Frisby, 2011;Flynn, Craig, Anderson, & Holody, 2016). Other research suggests that music lyrics tend to be even more important than musical tone in predicting listener behavior, suggesting that the message matters (Lennings & Warburton, 2011).…”

Section: Body Positivity and Musicmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mirror, mirror on the wall: The effect of listening to body positive music on implicit and explicit body esteem.

Coyne¹,

Davis²,

Warburton³

et al. 2021

Psychology of Popular Media

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The current article used 3 studies to examine the impact of listening to body positive music on both explicit and implicit measures of body esteem in women. Study 1 found that women who viewed a mainstream popular body positive music video reported higher levels of body esteem than those who viewed a popular body objectifying music video. In Studies 2 and 3, we wrote and recorded our own songs to keep the musical features apart from the lyrics constant (e.g., rhythm, melody, and singer identity). Study 2 also found that women showed higher levels of implicit (but not explicit) body esteem when watching a music video portraying body positive lyrics as compared with objectifying lyrics. Study 3 added a neutral song and examined a number of moderators. There were few differences between those listening to the body positive and neutral lyrics, but those who listened to objectifying compared with neutral lyrics had lower body esteem. Moderation revealed that women who had preexisting low body esteem showed lower implicit body esteem after listening to any appearance-related music compared with those who listened to neutral lyrics. Thus, we recommend that women choose to listen to body positive lyrics over objectifying ones and to avoid appearance-related songs if they are prone to body esteem concerns. Public Policy Relevance Statement Women who listen to body positive music tend to have higher body esteem than those who listen to body objectifying music. However, women who have prior body image concerns tend to have worse body esteem after listening to any appearance-related music (either positive or negative).

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Section: Body Positivity and Musicmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mirror, mirror on the wall: The effect of listening to body positive music on implicit and explicit body esteem.

Coyne¹,

Davis²,

Warburton³

et al. 2021

Psychology of Popular Media

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“…One of the most influential collection of music charts, the US-based Billboard charts, has been used in this context to examine the evolution of popular music and to test theories of cultural change [1]. Other approaches concentrated on the fractional representation of race and gender [2,3], on the distribution of blockbusters among superstars [4], on linguistic and psychological aspects [5,6] and on the question whether there is a trend towards a converging global popular music culture [7]. For the UK charts, a correlation analysis between musical trends, acoustic features and chart success has been performed [8].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Five decades of US, UK, German and Dutch music charts show that cultural processes are accelerating

Schneider

Gros

2019

R. Soc. open sci.

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Analysing the timeline of US, UK, German and Dutch music charts, we find that the evolution of album lifetimes and of the size of weekly rank changes provide evidence for an acceleration of cultural processes. For most of the past five decades, number one albums needed more than a month to climb to the top, nowadays an album is in contrast top ranked either from the start, or not at all. Over the last three decades, the number of top-listed albums increased as a consequence from roughly a dozen per year, to about 40. The distribution of album lifetimes evolved during the last decades from a log-normal distribution to a power law, a profound change. Presenting an information–theoretical approach to human activities, we suggest that the fading relevance of personal time horizons may be causing this phenomenon. Furthermore, we find that sales and airplay- based charts differ statistically and that the inclusion of streaming affects chart diversity adversely. We point out in addition that opinion dynamics may accelerate not only in cultural domains, as found here, but also in other settings, in particular in politics, where it could have far reaching consequences.

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“…Objectification theory developed by Fredrickson and Roberts () postulates that Western societies sexually objectify women and consider them objects that can be looked at and judged by others. Twenty‐two years later, sexual objectification – the tendency to consider or treat a person as a sexual object (Bartky, ) – is still present in various media (e.g., television, internet, music, magazines, video games) by conveying sexualized, idealized and stereotyped images of women (e.g., Flynn, Craig, Anderson & Holody, ; Hatton & Trautner, ; Wollast, Puvia, Bernard, Tevichapong & Klein, ). Importantly, this sexualization in media outlets like Facebook (Fardouly, Diedrichs, Vartanian & Halliwell, ), sexualizing sitcoms (Vandenbosch & Eggermont, ), and sexualizing music videos (Karsay & Matthes, ) increases women's exposure to sexualized ideals.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How self‐compassion moderates the effect of body surveillance on subjective happiness and depression among women

Wollast

Riemer

Bernard

et al. 2019

Scandinavian J Psychology

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O. (2019). How self-compassion moderates the effect of body surveillance on subjective happiness and depression among women. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 60, 464-472.According to objectification theory (Fredrickson & Roberts, 1997), being treated as an object leads women to engage in self-objectification, which in turn increases body surveillance and body shame as well as impairs mental health. However, very little is known about what factors could act as buffers against the detrimental consequences of self-objectification. This paper seeks to understand the role of self-compassion (the ability to kindly accept oneself or show self-directed kindness while suffering) in the perception that women have of their own bodies. Results indicate that self-compassion moderated the effect of body surveillance on depression and happiness separately among women. More specifically, for women low in self-compassion, body surveillance was negatively associated with happiness, which was explained by increased depression. In sum, our results indicate that self-compassion protects against the detrimental consequences of body surveillance.

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Objectification in Popular Music Lyrics: An Examination of Gender and Genre Differences

Cited by 43 publications

References 58 publications

Mirror, mirror on the wall: The effect of listening to body positive music on implicit and explicit body esteem.

Mirror, mirror on the wall: The effect of listening to body positive music on implicit and explicit body esteem.

Five decades of US, UK, German and Dutch music charts show that cultural processes are accelerating

How self‐compassion moderates the effect of body surveillance on subjective happiness and depression among women

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