Hoover-Thompson, Alysia A Women who self-objectify and objectify other women: The role of self-compassion. 2013. Radford University, Dissertation. Radford University Scholars' Repository.
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Abstract
Sexual objectification is harmful to women’s psychosocial health, as this form of oppression leads to increased body surveillance, body shame and decreased self-esteem. The construct of self-compassion (Neff, 2003a), and more specifically, the new concept of body or physical self-compassion (Berry, Kowalski, Ferguson, & McHugh, 2010; Magnus, Kowalski, & McHugh, 2010, respectively), has been found to mitigate this objectification. In addition, Szymanski and Carr (2011) called for social justice initiatives surrounding empowerment of female clients, and Szymanksi et al. (2011) suggested the need for further research about women who objectify other women. Although the professional literature has addressed self-compassion and these findings suggest the positive influence of increased body self-compassion, the literature has not extended a body self-compassion induction on women who experience selfobjectification and women who objectify other women. Utilizing an experimental design to address this gap in the literature, I proposed this research study to examine the effects of a selfcompassion induction on both self-objectification and objectification of other women. Four hundred and ten undergraduate female research participants were randomly assigned to a selfcompassion induction or control group. After completing the induction or the control writing prompts, all participants completed the Self-Objectification Scale (Noll & Fredrickson, 1998), a modified version of this scale to address objectification of other women, the Rosenberg Self- Esteem Scale (Rosenberg, 1965) and a demographics questionnaire developed by this researcher. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was then conducted to determine whether there were differences in self-objectification and objectification of other women between the self-compassion induction group and the control group. Results concluded that the effect of group membership was not statistically significant for scores of self-objectification or objectification of other women. Multiple regression was then used to find the unique contribution of the self-compassion induction beyond what was accounted for by self-esteem. Results concluded that the selfcompassion induction did not account for a significant proportion of variability in scores for self- or other-objectification beyond that already accounted for by self-esteem.
| Item Type: | Dissertation |
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| Subjects: | B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology |
| Divisions: | Radford University > College of Humanities and Behavioral Sciences > Department of Psychology |
| Date Deposited: | 30 May 2013 18:13 |
| Last Modified: | 19 Apr 2023 17:34 |
| URI: | http://wagner.radford.edu/id/eprint/107 |
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