The Effect Of Media And Internalization Of Beauty Ideals On Self-objectification:Mediating Role Of Self-esteem

Adolescent girls’ self-objectification has negative consequences for girls, such as depression eating disorder and so on (Grabe & Hyde,2009; Slater & Tiggemann,2010). Therefore, how to reduce adolescent girls’ self-objectification is important. This requires to find out influencing factors of self-objectification. Previous studies showed that sexually objectifying media images and the internalization of beauty ideals are important factors influencing the self-objectification. However, what roles individual psychological factors (e.g. Self-esteem) play in the formation of self-objectification needs further study. So, we study the relationship between self-esteem, media, internalization of beauty ideals and self-objectification in this research. Four studies aim to explore the relationships between them. Study la employs self-report data to study the relationships between the consumption of media, the internalization of beauty ideals, explicit self-esteem and girls’trait self-objectification. In study 1b, we replace explicit self-esteem with implicit self-esteem. In study 2a, television youth idol dramas, internalization of beauty ideals and explicit self-esteem are related to girls’state self-objectification. Also, we replace explicit self-esteem with implicit self-esteem in study 2b. The results of the studies are as follows:(1) The internalization of beauty ideals partially intermediates the relationship between media and trait self-objectification (indirect effect=0.144). Explicit self-esteem partially intermediates the relationship between internalization of beauty ideals and trait self-objectification (indirect effect=0.035). Internalization of beauty ideals completely intermediates the relationship between media and explicit self-esteem (indirect effect=0.199).(2) The media, internalization of beauty ideals and implicit self-esteem together explain 40.3% variance of trait self-objectification (internalization of beauty ideals is 28.6%, media is 7.9%, and implicit self-esteem is 3.8%). Internalization of beauty ideals (β=0.393, t=3.828,p<0.001) and media(β=0.291,t=2.792, p<0.01) have positive influences on trait self-objectification. However, implicit self-esteem (β=-0.215, t=-2.399, p<0.05) has negative influence on trait self-objectification.(3) The main effect of the media types (F (1,94)=7.882, p<0.01), internalization of beauty ideals (F (1,94)=18.64, p<0.001) and explicit self-objectification (F (1,94)=4.25, p<0.05) on state self-objectification are all significant. And then, the interaction effect of media types and internalization of beauty ideals is significant (F (1,94)=5.06, p<0.05). The interaction effect of media types and explicit self-objectification is significant (F (1,94)=4.967, p<0.05).(4) The results of simple main effect analysis indicate that the simple main effect of explicit self-esteem on non-sexual objectification media is significant (F (1,46)=7.23, p<0.01) and the simple main effect of internalization of beauty ideals on sexual objectification media is significant (F (1,48)=18.25, p<0.001).(5) The main effect of the implicit self-esteem on the state self-objectification is significant (F (1,77)=7.88,p<0.01). But the interaction of media types, implicit self-esteem and internalization of beauty ideals is not significant.Based on the above research results, present study proves that the effect mechanisms of trait self-objectification and state self-objectification are different.Especially, explicit self-esteem and implicit self-esteem play different roles in media, internalization of beauty ideals and (trait and state) self-objectification. However, high self-esteem (explicit and implicit) being able to predict low self-objectification is supported by all four studies.