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Roles Of Self Objectification And Appearance Anxiety On Marital Satisfaction
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The internalization of the
objectifying messages from the media leads individuals to self-objectify
and guides the perception of their worth (Thompson and Stice, 2001;
Vandenbosch and Eggermont, 2012; Karazsia, 2013). Recently, some authors
have pointed out the necessity to address the ideological antecedents
of self-objectification. In their experimental studies, Calogero and
Jost (2011) found that women exposed to specific ideology, i.e., sexist
attitudes, increase their level of self-objectification. They conclude
that self-objectification can be considered as a consequence of an
ideological pattern that justifies and preserves the societal status
quo. Teng (2016), with a sample of Chinese women, showed that women’s
values play a role in fostering a self-objectifying perspective, besides
other sociocultural and interpersonal predictors. By means of an
experimental study, these authors induced materialism and found that
“certain situational cues that do not contain any explicit information
about the physical body could give rise to self-objectification†(Teng,
2016). Thus, they demonstrated that materialism can trigger
self-objectification tendencies. In line with this research, Teng,
(2016) in their study with Chinese subjects showed that the more
materialistic women are, the more likely that they adopt on an
objectifying gaze upon themselves and show more monitoring of their
body. Despite these two recent studies and few exceptions (Loughnan,
2015) for the impact of culture on male and female self-objectification;
Myers and Crowther, (2007) for the role of feminist beliefs and Hurt,
(2007) for the role of feminist identity) to the best of our knowledge
no other research has explored the role played by specific ideological
components, such as personal values, in the development of
self-objectification. However, according to Howard (1985), values play
an important role in shaping people attitudes and behaviors. For
example, empirical studies have shown that self-objectification
predicted greater body shame and greater appearance anxiety (Moradi
& Huang, 2008). The construct of self-objectification is
conceptualized as a learned trait (Calogero, 2011). However, it can also
be elicited momentarily, such as through media use, and can lead to a
state of self-objectification (Calogero, 2011, Moradi & Huang,
2008). There have been different approaches to operationalizing
self-objectification because researchers understand it as a multifaceted
concept (Calogero, 2011; Fredrickson & Roberts, 1997; Vandenbosch
& Eggermont, 2012, 2013).
Humans are social beings.
They are born in a communication environment in society and are raised
by establishing communication by social identities such as family,
teachers, neighbors, relatives, friends, acquaintances and bosses until
their death. However, the common feature of all people is that they
influence and are influenced by people with whom they establish
communication. The number of individuals who do not have the ability to
express themselves, who cannot speak in front of others and who have
"social concerns" in the society is pretty much in the society
(Kağıtçıbaşı, 1988). It is a known fact that all people fear and become
anxious under some circumstances. However, measuring the level of this
emerging concern is important for psychologists, psychiatrists and
educators. This is because treatment process and training programs can
be prepared only in the light of such information (Öner and Le Compte,
1985). Social concern, also known as appearance anxiety, is defined as
significant and persistent fear which emerges in social situations or in
front of strangers or in situations that require performance in DSM-IV
(APA, 2000). It is expressed as the fear of being eyed by other people
in relatively small groups in ICD-10 (WHO, 1993).
Appearance anxiety
is “the fear that one will be negatively evaluated because of one’s
appearance†(Hart, 2008). Appearance anxiety is indeed positively
correlated with social interaction anxiety, fear of negative evaluation,
fear of scrutiny, and measures of negative body image (Hart, 2008).
However, it does not appear to represent mere overlap among these other
constructs. Instead, appearance anxiety has been found to be a unique
construct highly related to social anxiety that taps into a unique
proportion of variability in social anxiety beyond negative body image,
depression, personality, and affect (i.e., social appearance anxiety
predicts social anxiety when all of the constructs noted above are
included in the regression equation) (Hart, 2008; Levinson &
Rodebaugh, 2011). More specifically, social appearance anxiety differs
from body image concerns because it focuses on fears evoked from being
evaluated by others on one’s overall appearance, rather than a general
dissatisfaction in one’s self-image because of body dissatisfaction.
Based on the available evidence, we conceptualize social appearance
anxiety as a negative social evaluative fear that is distinct from fear
of negative evaluation because it focuses specifically on fears of
judgment based on appearance versus negative evaluation fears more
generally. That is, we see appearance anxiety as a specific type of fear
of negative evaluation that requires measurement in its own right due
to its greater specificity. Perceived flaws in appearance have been
implicated as a possible core fear in social anxiety disorder
(Moscovitch, 2009).
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ABSRACT - [ Total Page(s): 1 ]This study investigated the role of self-objectification and Appearance Anxiety on marital satisfaction among married people. Two hundred and fifty-three (253) participants purposively selected from St, Peters Catholic Church, ministry of education and ministry of Health, in Uyo, Akwa-Ibom State consisting of 109 males and 144 females with a mean age of 35.6 years. A survey design was adopted for the study. Three instruments were used in the study objectified body consciousness scale (Melkinley ... Continue reading---
