Objectification Theory: Toward Understanding Women's Lived Experiences and Mental Health Risks

1997/06/01 by Barbara L. Fredrickson, Tomi-Ann Roberts, Tomi‐Ann Roberts · 4,068 citations
Psychology · Social Sciences · #Eating Disorders and Behaviors #Evolutionary Psychology and Human Behavior #Gender Roles and Identity Studies

paper · doi:10.1111/j.1471-6402.1997.tb00108.x

published in Psychology of Women Quarterly 21(2), 173-206 (SAGE Publications)

crossref issued 1997/06/01 · crossref published 1997/06/01 · crossref published-online 1997/06/01 · crossref published-print 1997/06/01 · openalex publication_date 1997/06/01 · crossref created 2006/07/29 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · crossref deposited 2026/05/01 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/04 · crossref indexed 2026/08/07

Abstract

This article offers objectification theory as a framework for understanding the experiential consequences of being female in a culture that sexually objectifies the female body. Objectification theory posits that girls and women are typically acculturated to internalize an observer's perspective as a primary view of their physical selves. This perspective on self can lead to habitual body monitoring, which, in turn, can increase women's opportunities for shame and anxiety, reduce opportunities for peak motivational states, and diminish awareness of internal bodily states. Accumulations of such experiences may help account for an array of mental health risks that disproportionately affect women: unipolar depression, sexual dysfunction, and eating disorders. Objectification theory also illuminates why changes in these mental health risks appear to occur in step with life-course changes in the female body.

Citations

• Sexuality, Schooling, and Adolescent Females: The Missing Discourse of Desire
• Learned helplessness in humans: Critique and reformulation.
• Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema
• Origins and functions of positive and negative affect: A control-process view.
• Eating Disorders: Obesity, Anorexia Nervosa, and the Person Within
• Intrinsic motivation and the effects of self‐consciousness, self‐awareness, and ego‐involvement: An investigation of internally controlling styles
• Sex differences in human mate preferences: Evolutionary hypotheses tested in 37 cultures
• Responses to depression and their effects on the duration of depressive episodes.

Cited by

• Muslim male segmentation: the male gaze and girl power in Malaysian vampire movies
• Internalised White Ideal, Skin Tone Surveillance, and Hair Surveillance Predict Skin and Hair Dissatisfaction and Skin Bleaching among African American and Indian Women
• Exploring the conceptualization of body image for Asian American women.
• Beauty Work: Individual and Institutional Rewards, the Reproduction of Gender, and Questions of Agency
• The Impact of Western Beauty Ideals on the Lives of Women: A Sociocultural Perspective
• Body image in adult women: moving beyond the younger years
• Body shame and exercise adherence intention: the moderating role of peer support and the mediating role of exercise motivation
• Fleeing the Body: A Terror Management Perspective on the Problem of Human Corporeality
• Sexy versus strong: What girls and women think of female athletes
• The presence of female athletes and non-athletes on sports media Twitter
• The Madonna-Whore Dichotomy Is Associated With Patriarchy Endorsement: Evidence From Israel, the United States, and Germany
• Action Identification Theory
• The Personal is Political
• An Examination of the Tripartite Influence Model of Body Image
• Do lesbian women have a better body image? Comparisons with heterosexual women and model of lesbian-specific factors
• “It’s a Comparison Thing, Isn’t It?”
• Body Dissatisfaction and Disordered Eating Among Early Adolescents From Korea and the US
• Gender and racial/ethnic differences in body image development among college students
• Are Contemporary Media Images Which Seem to Display Women as Sexually Empowered Actually Harmful to Women?
• Body Image and Self-Esteem Across Age and Gender: A Short-Term Longitudinal Study
• Body Image and Sexual Dissatisfaction: Differences Among Heterosexual, Bisexual, and Lesbian Women
• Selling yourself short: How sexualized online dating profiles affect viewers’ perceptions and relationship intentions
• “Hot, Black Leather, Whip”
• Dress and sex: a review of empirical research involving human participants and published in refereed journals
• The Relationship Between Endorsement of the Sexual Double Standard and Sexual Cognitions and Emotions
• Bare Bodies: Nudity, Gender, and the Looking Glass Body
• Of Animals and Objects
• Employee Objectification in Modern Organizations: Who Has Swept Personal Dignity Under the Carpet?
• How beneficiaries see complex health interventions: a practice review of the Most Significant Change in ten countries
• Keeping Abreast of Hypersexuality: A Video Game Character Content Analysis
• Gender Differences in Domain-Specific Self-Esteem: A Meta-Analysis
• Interacting with sexist men triggers social identity threat among female engineers.
• Gestational Body Mass Gain and Mental Health During Pregnancy Among Cisgender Heterosexual Women: An Objectification Theory Perspective
• Contingencies of self-worth.
• Framing Perception: Exploring Camera Induced Objectification in Cinema
• Exploitation of women in mass media [wikipedia]
• South Korean beauty standards [wikipedia]