Sexual objectification increases retaliatory aggression

Abstract

Two experiments were conducted to investigate whether sexual objectification increases retaliatory aggression serially through increased vulnerability and hostile intent attributions. Female participants were first exposed to the sexual objectification manipulation by receiving compliments from an online male partner (Experiment 1) or imagining a workplace objectification experience (Experiment 2). Afterward, their vulnerability and hostile intent attributions were assessed. Finally, they were given an opportunity to behave aggressively toward the source of objectification. The results of both experiments indicated that, compared with their counterparts in the control conditions, participants in the sexual objectification condition reported higher levels of vulnerability, hostile intent attributions, and aggression. Moreover, vulnerability and hostile intent attributions serially mediated the effect of sexual objectification on aggression. These findings highlight the critical influence of vulnerability and hostile intent attributions in understanding how sexual objectification increases aggression. K E Y W O R D S aggression, antisocial behavior, hostile intent attributions, sexual objectification, vulnerability

Electrophysiological, emotional and behavioural responses of female targets of sexual objectification

“…For what concerns sexual objectification, our findings clearly suggest that female targets of sexual objectification react following two distinctive emotional and behavioural paths. Indeed, our findings concur with the apparently divergent literature that sometimes reported increased shame 4 , 6 – 9 and sometimes increased anger/disgust in sexually objectifying contexts 20 , 25 , 26 ; at the same time these contexts sometimes elicited active 18 , 25 , 26 and sometimes passive actions 5 , 14 – 16 towards the objectifying men. The present findings suggest that female targets of sexual objectification generally experience anger/disgust and actively respond to the perpetrator, punishing him.…”

“…Still, those women who self-objectify more, also experience more shame emotions and punish the perpetrator less. The increased punishment behaviour in female targets of sexual objectification is consistent with previous studies in which objectified women reported higher willingness to activism 26 , or increased explicit aggressive behaviours 18 . More generally, anger responses are typically related to aggressive behaviours 23 or direct aggression 50 , making it reasonable that women act in this way when they experience anger during an objectifying social interaction.…”

“…Alongside this literature, however, there is also evidence that female victims of sexual objectification report hostile intent and aggressive/punishing behaviours toward the objectifying men 18 . After the exposure to verbal stranger harassment, for example, some authors found that body shame through body surveillance increased, but only in women who reacted to the harassment with happiness, empowerment, or—interestingly, with low levels of anger 19 .…”

“…Indeed, in many studies in which shame was reported, the authors correlated this response with the measure of self-objectification, assessed by self-reports (e.g., 4,[6][7][8][9] ). Instead, when authors manipulated sexual objectification in a between-subjects experimental design, women who were sexually objectified (but who did not self-objectify) reported more anger responses (e.g., 18,20,25 ). These considerations lead us to argue that the specific emotional and social consequences of sexual objectification may depend on the tendency to self-objectify.…”