New research suggests that self-objectification—often thought to impair cognitive performance in women—might not have the detrimental effects previously assumed. The study explored the impact of self-objectification and the anticipation of a sexualized male gaze on cognitive abilities, particularly working memory. Contrary to widespread belief, the study revealed no significant impairment in cognitive performance due to self-objectification. The findings have been published in PLOS One.
The motivation for this research emerged from a longstanding debate in psychological science. Prevailing theories, like Objectification Theory proposed by Fredrickson and Roberts in 1997, suggest that when women are objectified — treated as objects for others’ use and pleasure — they may start self-objectifying, leading to a host of negative psychological outcomes.
One of the key claims of this theory is that self-objectification consumes women’s attention, diverting it towards body monitoring and potentially impairing performance in tasks requiring cognitive resources. Previous studies had produced inconsistent results, prompting the Northwestern University researchers to undertake a more robust investigation.
“We are fascinated by empirical research that has clear implications for women’s everyday lives,” explained Renee Engeln, a professor of instruction in psychology and the author of “.”
“We’re also invested in social psychology’s growing emphasis on well-powered, replicable research. This study was a chance to conduct a rigorous test of the extent to which being objectified can affect women’s cognitive performance. Given how often women experience sexual objectification, if these experiences are affecting women’s ability to concentrate, it’s important to be able to document and understand that phenomenon.”
To explore this, Engeln and her co-author Anne Zola designed a well-powered experiment with 407 women initially participating, with 376 remaining after exclusions for various reasons. The participants, aged 18–25, were predominantly college students.
Participants were randomly divided into three distinct groups: a control group, a self-objectification group, and a male gaze group. In the control group, participants’ cognitive performance was assessed in a standard, non-objectifying environment. The self-objectification group, on the other hand, experienced a heightened awareness of their bodies, as they were video-recorded from the neck down. The third group, the male gaze group, was not only recorded but also led to believe that these recordings would later be assessed by men in a dating study context.
The centerpiece of the study was a working memory task, which was modeled after a subsection of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-IV. This task was specifically chosen for its ability to assess attention and working memory without the need for advanced mathematical skills, focusing instead on simple arithmetic problems that required mental computation. This approach was deliberately chosen to avoid confounding factors like math anxiety or stereotype threat – a phenomenon where individuals perform poorly on tasks where their group is stereotypically expected to do so.
Before commencing the working memory task, each participant completed pre-tests measuring their current level of anxiety and guilt. They were then placed in the conditions specific to their group, with the self-objectification and male gaze groups being video-recorded. The working memory task involved listening to, processing, and mentally solving arithmetic problems, then writing the final answers on a whiteboard.
After completing the task, participants were given post-tests mirroring the pre-tests to measure any changes in anxiety, guilt, and body image state. They were also asked to guess the study’s hypothesis to check if their guesses influenced the outcomes. Furthermore, the Objectified Body Consciousness Scale was adapted to measure the extent to which participants were preoccupied with monitoring their physical appearance – a key indicator of state self-objectification.
Contrary to expectations, the results showed that while the video-recording did increase self-objectification, it did not lead to a reduction in cognitive performance on working memory tasks. There was no significant difference in the accuracy of responses or the time taken to complete problems among the three groups. Furthermore, no association was found between state body surveillance scores and either response accuracy or latency. This suggests that the level of body surveillance experienced by participants did not impact their cognitive performance.
“We should all remember that a single study doesn’t ‘prove’ (or disprove!) a scientific claim. It’s tempting to simplify the stories we tell about research findings, but the deeper you dig, the more complexity and nuance you often find,” Engeln told PsyPost.
“We know that attention is a limited resource. And it makes sense that if you’re focused on the fact that others are evaluating how your body looks, that’s going to claim part of your attention. We found that when objectified, the women in our study focused more on how they looked. But we didn’t find that being objectified had a measurable effect on women’s working memory. Most women have likely had a lot of practice staying focused on a task even when someone is evaluating their physical appearance. Research on this topic may have overlooked women’s resilience in response to these experiences.”
Interestingly, the study also found that completing the working memory task increased anxiety and guilt across all conditions, indicating that the task itself, regardless of the condition, made participants feel worse. However, the change was not different across the experimental conditions.
“We were surprised at how unpleasant our participants found the experience of having to answer relatively simple math problems out loud,” Engeln said. “Math anxiety wasn’t the focus of our study, but it’s certainly a reminder that even very academically talented women like those in this study can still experience substantial anxiety about their abilities.”
While the study’s methodology was robust, including a well-powered design and preregistration, it did have limitations. The sample was narrow, consisting mostly of college students from a highly selective university, which might not represent the broader population. The study also did not control for individual differences like sexual orientation or trait self-objectification, which could influence responses to objectification. Moreover, the study’s focus on a specific demographic and setting limits the generalizability of the findings.
Given the surprising results of this study, further exploration into the conditions under which objectification might impact cognitive performance is needed. Studies could consider a wider array of cognitive tasks and include a more diverse participant pool to understand the role of individual differences in these effects. Additionally, understanding how women combat objectifying environments and thoughts could provide new insights into resilience in the face of objectification.
“Researchers have tried to create ‘objectification’ in a lab setting in many different ways,” Engeln explained. “There is still much to learn in terms of understanding whether some types of objectification might have bigger effects on women’s cognition than others.”
“For example, women may respond differently when their appearance is evaluated in a non-sexual way (as it might be during a job interview, for example) compared to when they are openly sexually objectified (like when a woman is cat-called). We also know very little about how women cope with being objectified or how they minimize the effects of being objectified. That’s an important area for future research.”
The study, “Brains over beauty: A preregistered test of the effects of objectification on women’s cognitive performance“, was published September 21, 2023.
