Abstract
Previous research has shown that sexual harassment has potential influence on women’s well-being and body image. This study evaluated the effects of exposure to catcalling, which is the specific instance of sexual harassment on the street by strangers, on women’s state body image and state self-objectification. The participants were randomized into experimental and control groups and were pre-tested to determine their state body image and self-objectification. The participants then watched one of two videos. The experimental video included four women being catcalled by a man while they walked down the street. The control video was set up on the exact same street, with the exact same women, but without the catcalling. Finally, participants completed a post-test questionnaire to measure their state body image and self-objectification as well as their trait body image and self-objectification. Results showed that there were no significant differences between the control and experimental groups regarding either body image or self-objectification. Bayes factor analyses confirmed the results as null.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Bowman, C. G. (1993). Street harassment and the informal ghettoization of women. Harvard Law Review, 106, 517.
Calogero, R. M. (2009). Objectification processes and disordered eating in British women and men. Journal of Health Psychology, 14, 394–402. https://doi.org/10.1177/1359105309102192.
Calogero, R. M., & Thompson, J. K. (2009). Sexual self-esteem in American and British college women: relations with self-objectification and eating problems. Sex Roles, 60, 160–173. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-008-9517-0.
Cash, T. (2000). The multidimensional body-self relations questionnaire. Virginia Beach: Old Dominion University.
Cash, T. F., Fleming, E. C., Alindogan, J., Steadman, L., & Whitehead, A. (2002). Beyond body image as a trait: the development and validation of the body image states scale. Eating Disorders, 10, 103–113. https://doi.org/10.1080/10640260290081678.
Chaudoir, S. R., & Quinn, D. M. (2010). Bystander sexism in the inter-group context: the impact of cat-calls on women’s reactions towards men. Sex Roles, 62, 623–634. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199009-9735-0.
Collinsworth, L. L., Fitzgerald, L. F., & Drasgow, F. (2009). In harm's way: factors related to psychological distress following sexual harassment. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 33, 475–490. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1471-6402.2009.01525.x.
Davidson, M. M., Gervais, S. J., & Sherd, L. W. (2015). The ripple effects of stranger harassment on objectification of self and others. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 39, 53–66. https://doi.org/10.1177/0361684313514371.
Davidson, M. M., Butchko, M. S., Robbins, K., Sherd, L. W., & Gervais, S. J. (2016). The mediating role of perceived safety on street harassment and anxiety. Psychology of Violence, 6, 553–561. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0039970.
Fairchild, K. (2010). Context effects on women’s perceptions of stranger harassment. Sexuality and Culture: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly, 14, 191–216. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12119-010-9070-1.
Fairchild, K., & Rudman, L. A. (2008). Everyday stranger harassment and women's objectification. Social Justice Research, 21, 338–357. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11211-008-0073-0.
Ferguson, C. J. (2013). In the eye of the beholder: thin-ideal media affects some but not most viewers in a meta-analytic review of body dissatisfaction in women and men. Psychology of Popular Media Culture, 2, 20–37. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0030766.
Fredrickson, B. L., & Roberts, T. (1997). Objectification theory: toward understanding women’s lived experiences and mental health risks. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 21, 173–206.
Fredrickson, B. L., Roberts, T., Noll, S. M., Quinn, D. M., & Twenge, J. M. (1998). That swimsuit becomes you: sex differences in self-objectification, restrained eating, and math performance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 75, 269–284. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.75.1.269.
Fuller-Tyszkiewicz, M., Reynard, K., Skouteris, H., & McCabe, M. (2012). An examination of the contextual determinants of self-objectification. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 36, 76–87. https://doi.org/10.1177/0361684311426721.
Gill, R. (2012). Media, empowerment and the ‘sexualization of culture’ debates. Sex Roles, 66, 736–745. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-011-0107-1.
Grossman, A. J. (2008). Catcalling: creepy or a compliment? Retrieved May 15, 2008 from http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/personal/05/14/lw.catcalls/index.html.
Hayes, A. F. (2013). Introduction to mediation, moderation, and conditional process analysis: a regression-based approach. New York: Guilford Press.
Hayes, S., & Tantleff-Dunn, S. (2010). Am I too fat to be a princess? Examining the effects of popular children’s media on young girls’ body image. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 28, 413–426. https://doi.org/10.1348/026151009X424240.
Hitlan, R. T., Schneider, K. T., & Walsh, B. M. (2006). Upsetting behavior: reactions to personal and bystander sexual harassment experiences. Sex Roles, 55, 187–195. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-006-9072-5.
Johnson, H., & Sacco, V. F. (1995). Researching violence against women: statistics Canada’s national survey. Canadian Journal of Criminology, 37, 281–304.
Koskela, H., & Tani, S. (2005). Sold out!' Women's practices of resistance against prostitution related sexual harassment. Women's Studies International Forum, 28, 418–429. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wsif.2005.05.004.
Koss, M. P., Goodman, L. A., Browne, A., Fitzgerald, L. F., Keita, G. P., & Russo, N. F. (1994). No safe haven: male violence against women at home, at work, and in the community, Washington, DC. American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/10156-000.
Kozee, H. B., Tylka, T. L., Augustus-Horvath, C. L., & Denchik, A. (2007). Development and psychometric evaluation of the interpersonal sexual objectification scale. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 31, 176–189. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1471-6402.2007.00351.x.
Kuhn, M., & McPartland, T. S. (1954). An empirical investigation of self-attitudes. American Sociological Review, 19, 68–76.
Lang, A. (2013). Discipline in crisis? The shifting paradigm of mass communication research. Communication Theory, 23, 10–24. https://doi.org/10.1111/comt.12000.
Lindner, D., Tantleff-Dunn, S., & Jentsch, F. (2012). Social comparison and the ‘circle of objectification’. Sex Roles, 67, 222–235. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-012-0175-x.
Liss, M., Erchull, M. J., & Ramsey, L. R. (2011). Empowering or oppressing? Development and exploration of the enjoyment of sexualization scale. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 37, 55–68. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167210386119.
Livingston, B. A. (2015). Hollaback! International street harassment survey project. Retrieved on July 28, 2016, from http://www.ihollaback.org/cornell-international-survey-on-street-harrassment/#us.
MacMillan, R., Nierobisz, A., & Welsh, S. (2000). Experiencing the streets: harassment and perceptions of safety among women. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 37, 306–322. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022427800037003003.
McCarty, M. K., Iannone, N. E., & Kelly, J. R. (2014). Stanger danger: the role of perpetrator and context in moderating reactions to sexual harassment. Sexuality and Culture, 18, 739–758. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12119-013-9215-0.
McKinley, N. M., & Hyde, J. S. (1996). The objectified body consciousness scale: development and validation. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 20, 181–215. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1471- 6402.1996.tb00467.x.
Miner-Rubino, K., Twenge, J. M., & Fredrickson, B. L. (2002). Trait self-objectification in women: affective and personality correlates. Journal of Research in Personality, 36, 147–172. https://doi.org/10.1006/jrpe.2001.2343.
Noll, S. M., & Fredrickson, B. L. (1998). A mediational model linking self-objectification, body shame, and disordered eating. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 22, 623–636. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1471-6402.1998.tb00181.x.
Pina, A., & Gannon, T. A. (2012). An overview of the literature on antecedents, perceptions and behavioural consequences of sexual harassment. Journal of Sexual Aggression, 18, 209–232. https://doi.org/10.1080/13552600.2010.501909.
Quinn, D. M., Kallen, R. W., Twenge, J. M., & Fredrickson, B. L. (2006). The disruptive effect of self-objectification on performance. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 30, 59–64. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1471-6402.2006.00262.x.
Saunders, B. A., Scaturro, C., Guarino, C., & Kelly, E. (2016). Contending with catcalling: the role of system-justifying beliefs and ambivalent sexism in predicting women’s coping experiences with (and men’s attributes for) stranger harassment. Current Psychology (Advance online publication). doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-016-9421-7.
Schneider, K. T., Swan, S., & Fitzgerald, L. F. (1997). Job-related and psychological effects of sexual harassment in the workplace: empirical evidence from two organizations. Journal of Applied Psychology, 82, 401–415. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.82.3.401.
Shechory Bitton, M., & Shaul, D. B. (2013). Perceptions and attitudes to sexual harassment: an examination of sex differences and the sex composition of the harasser–target dyad. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 43, 2136–2145. https://doi.org/10.1111/jasp.12166.
Strelan, P., & Hargreaves, D. (2005). Women who objectify other women: the vicious circle of objectification? Sex Roles, 52, 707–712. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-005-3737-3.
Szymanski, D. M., & Feltman, C. E. (2014). Experiencing and coping with sexually objectifying treatment: internalization and resilience. Sex Roles, 71, 159–170. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-014-0392-6.
Thompson, J. K., Heinberg, L. J., Altabe, M., & Tantleff-Dunn, S. (1999). Exacting beauty: theory, assessment, and treatment of body image disturbance. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/10312-000.
Tiggemann, M., & Kuring, J. K. (2004). The role of body objectification in disordered eating and depressed mood. British Journal of Clinical Psychology, 43, 299–311. https://doi.org/10.1348/0144665031752925.
Wiener, R. L., Gervais, S. J., Allen, J., & Marquez, A. (2013). Eye of the beholder: effects of perspective and sexual objectification on harassment judgments. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 19, 206–221. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0028497.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of Interest
Sophie Fisher declares that she has no conflicts of interest. Danielle Lindner declares that she has no conflicts of interest. Christopher J. Ferguson declares that he has no conflicts of interest.
Ethical Approval
All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.
Informed Consent
Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Fisher, S., Lindner, D. & Ferguson, C.J. The Effects of Exposure to Catcalling on Women’s State Self-Objectification and Body Image. Curr Psychol 38, 1495–1502 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-017-9697-2
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-017-9697-2