Objectification Theory and Emotions

doi:10.1017/CBO9780511819568.012

10 - Objectification Theory and Emotions

A Feminist Psychological Perspective on Gendered Affect

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 April 2011

Laura B. Citrin,

Tomi-Ann Roberts and

Barbara L. Fredrickson

Edited by

Larissa Z. Tiedens and

Colin Wayne Leach

Show author details

Laura B. Citrin: Affiliation:
University of Michigan
Tomi-Ann Roberts: Affiliation:
Colorado College
Barbara L. Fredrickson: Affiliation:
University of Michigan
Larissa Z. Tiedens: Affiliation:
Stanford University, California
Colin Wayne Leach: Affiliation:
University of California, Santa Cruz

Book contents

Get access

Summary

In February 2002, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the drug Botox, a diluted version of the neurotoxin that causes botulism, for the cosmetic purpose of removing wrinkles. Long in use by a mostly female consumer group – actresses and female TV personalities – as a quicker and easier way than plastic surgery to erase the signs of aging, Botox injections are now considered legally safe and can be marketed en masse to aging Americans in a fashion similar to the recent promotion of Viagra or Claritin. What is alarming about the potential widespread use, and the current popularity of it among women in the public eye, is its unavoidable side effect: loss of the ability to effectively communicate emotions via facial expression, particularly anger (see Friedman, 2002; Kuczynski, 2002).

Botox works by injection into the muscle behind one's wrinkles, and through local paralysis of that muscle, the wrinkles are smoothed. But because of that paralysis, one also can no longer use the muscles that caused the wrinkles – the lasting marks of repeated facial expressiveness – in the first place. So, in effect, having a Botox treatment not only makes it difficult for the recipient to demonstrate emotional feeling on the face, it also eliminates the evidence of years of emotions. About the common use of Botox by some women, The New York Times stated, “In a variation on ‘The Stepford Wives’ [a 1975 film in which “perfect” wives are revealed to be machines wearing mask-like disguises], it is now rare in certain social enclaves to see a woman over the age of 35 with the ability to look angry” (Kuczynski, 2002, p. A1).

Information

Type: Chapter
Information: The Social Life of Emotions , pp. 203 - 224
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511819568.012 [Opens in a new window]
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2004

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Book purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Abbey, A. (1982). Sex differences in attributions for friendly behavior: Do males misperceive females' friendliness?Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 42, 830–838CrossRef Google Scholar

Alexander, M. G., & Wood, W. (2000). Women, men, and positive emotions. In A. H. Fisher (Ed.), Gender and emotion: Social psychological perspectives (pp. 189–210). New York: Cambridge University PressCrossRef

Beneke, T. (1982). Men on rape. New York: St. Martin's Press

Berscheid, E., Dion, K., Walster, E., & Walster, G. W. (1971). Physical attractiveness and dating choice: A test of the matching hypothesis. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 7, 173–189CrossRef Google Scholar

Brody, L. R. (1999). Gender, emotion, and the family. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press

Brody, L. R., & Hall, J. A. (2000). Gender, emotion, and expression. In M. Lewis & J. M. Haviland-Jones (Eds.), Handbook of emotions (2nd Edition; pp. 338–349). New York: Guilford Press

Brownmiller, S. (1975). Against our will: Men, women and rape. New York: Simon & Schuster

Brownmiller, S. (1984). Femininity. New York: Linden Press/Simon and Schuster

Bugental, D. E., Love, L. R., & Gianetto, R. M. (1971). Perfidious feminine faces. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 17, 314–318CrossRef Google Scholar PubMed

Butler, J. (1990). Gender trouble: Feminism and the subversion of identity. New York: Routledge

Campbell, A., & Muncer, C. (1987). Models of anger and aggression in the social talk of women and men. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 17, 498–511CrossRef Google Scholar

Citrin, L. B. (2003). Disgust and the female body. Manuscript under review

Coates, E. J., & Feldman, R. S. (1996). Gender differences in nonverbal correlates of social status. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 22, 1014–1022CrossRef Google Scholar

Crandall, C. S. (1994). Prejudice against fat people: Ideology and self-interest. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 66, 882–894CrossRef Google Scholar PubMed

Crawford, M., & Unger, R. K. (2000). Women and gender: A feminist psychology (3rd Edition). Boston: McGraw Hill

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1982). Toward a psychology of optimal experience. In L. Wheeler (Ed.), Review of personality and social psychology. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). Flow. New York: Harper Perennial

Darwin, C. (1965). The expression of emotion in man and animals. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. (Original work published 1872.)

Deffenbacher, J. L., Oetting, E. R., Lynch, R. S., & Morris, C. A. (1996). The expression of anger and its consequences. Behavior Research and Therapy, 34, 575–590CrossRef Google Scholar PubMed

Dion, K. L., Dion, K. K., & Keelan, J. P. (1990). Appearance anxiety as a dimension of social-evaluative anxiety: Exploring the ugly duckling syndrome. Contemporary Social Psychology, 14, 220–224Google Scholar

Eagly, A. H. (1987). Sex differences in social behavior: A social role interpretation. Hillside, NJ: Erlbaum

Ekman, P., Levenson, R. W., & Friesen, W. V. (1983). Autonomic nervous system activity distinguishes between emotions. Science, 221, 1208–1210CrossRef Google Scholar PubMed

Fallon, A. E., & Rozin, P. (1985). Sex differences in perception of desirable body shape. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 94, 102–105CrossRef Google Scholar PubMed

Fehr, B., & Baldwin, M. (1996). Prototype and script analyses of laypeople's knowledge of anger. In G. J. O. Fletcher & J. Fitness (Eds.), Knowledge structures in close relationships: A social psychological approach (pp. 219–245). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum

Ferguson, T. J., & Crowley, S. L. (1997). Measure for measure: A multitrait-multimethod analysis of guilt and shame. Journal of Personality Assessment, 69, 425–441CrossRef Google Scholar

Fischer, A. H. (1993). Sex differences in emotionality: Fact or stereotype. Feminism and Psychology, 3, 303–318CrossRef Google Scholar

Fischer, A. H. (Ed.). (2000). Gender and emotion: Social psychological perspectives. New York: Cambridge University Press

Fiske, S. T. (1993). Controlling other people: The impact of power on stereotyping. American Psychologist, 48 (6), 621–628CrossRef Google Scholar PubMed

Fredrickson, B. L. (1998). Cultivated emotions: Parental socialization of positive emotions and self-conscious emotions. Psychological Inquiry, 9 (4), 279–281CrossRef Google Scholar

Fredrickson, B. L., & Harrison, K. (in press). “Throwing like a girl”: Self-objectification predicts adolescent girls' motor performance. Journal of Sport and Social Issues

Fredrickson, B. L., & Roberts, T.-A. (1997). Objectification theory: Toward understanding women's lived experiences and mental health risks. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 21, 173–206CrossRef Google Scholar

Fredrickson, B. F., Roberts, T.-A., 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 (1), 269–284CrossRef Google Scholar PubMed

Friedman, R. A. (2002, August 6). A peril of the veil of Botox. The New York Times, p. D5

Gibson, J. J. (1979). The ecological approach to visual perception. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin

Gordon, M. T., & Riger, S. (1989). The female fear: The social cost of rape. New York: Free Press

Griffin, S. (1979). Rape: The power of consciousness. San Francisco: Harper & Row

Haidt, J., Rozin, P., McCauley, C. R., & Imada, S. (1997). Body, psyche, and culture: The relationship between disgust and morality. Psychology and Developing Societies, 9, 107–131CrossRef Google Scholar

Hall, J. A. (1984). Nonverbal sex differences: Communication accuracy and expressive style. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press

Hall, J. A., Carter, J. D., & Horgan, T. G. (2000). Gender differences in nonverbal communication of emotion. In A. Fischer (Ed.), Gender and emotion: Social psychological perspectives (pp. 97–117). New York: Cambridge University PressCrossRef

Hecht, M. A., & LaFrance, M. (1998). License or obligation to smile: Power, sex and smiling. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 24 (12), 1332–1342CrossRef Google Scholar

Henley, N. M. (1977). Body politics: Power, sex and nonverbal communication. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall

Jacobson, M. B., & Popovich, P. M. (1983). Victim attractiveness and perceptions of responsibility in an ambiguous rape case. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 8, 100–104CrossRef Google Scholar

Keelan, J. P., Dion, K. K., & Dion, K. L. (1992). Correlates of appearance anxiety in late adolescence and early adulthood among young women. Journal of Adolescence, 15, 193–205CrossRef Google Scholar PubMed

Keltner, D., Young, R. C., Heerey, E. A., Oemig, C., & Monarch, N. D. (1998). Teasing in hierarchical and intimate relations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 75, 1231–1247CrossRef Google Scholar PubMed

Kopper, B. A., & Epperson, D. L. (1991). Women and anger: Sex and sex-role comparisons in the expression of anger. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 15, 7–14CrossRef Google Scholar

Kopper, B. A., & Epperson, D. L. (1996). The experience and expression of anger: Relationships with gender, gender role socialization, depression, and mental health functioning. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 43, 158–165CrossRef Google Scholar

Kring, A. M. (2000). Gender and anger. In A. Fischer (Ed.), Gender and emotion: Social psychological perspectives (pp. 211–231). New York: Cambridge University PressCrossRef

Kuczynski, A. (2002, February 7). F. D. A. plans to approve a drug long endorsed by the vainer set. The New York Times, pp. A1, A18

LaFrance, M. (1998). Pressure to be pleasant: Effects of sex and power on reactions to not smiling. International Review of Social Psychology, 2, 95–108Google Scholar

LaFrance, M., & Hecht, M. (2000). Gender and smiling: A meta-analysis. In A. Fischer (Ed.), Gender and emotion: Social psychological perspectives (pp. 118–142). New York: Cambridge University PressCrossRef

Lazarus, R. S. (1991). Emotion and adaptation. New York: Oxford University Press

Lerner, H. G. (1993). The dance of deception: Pretending and truth-telling in women's lives. New York: HarperCollins

Lewis, H. B. (1971). Shame and guilt in neurosis. New York: International Universities Press

Lewis, H. B. (1989). Some thoughts on the moral emotions of shame and guilt. In L. Cirillo, B. Kaplan, & S. Wapner (Eds.), Emotions in ideal human development (pp. 35–51). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum

Lewis, J., & Stearns, P. N. (1998). Introduction. In P. N. Stearns, & J. Lewis (Eds.), An emotional history of the United States (pp. 1–15). New York: New York University Press

Lewis, M. (1992). Shame: The exposed self. New York: Free Press

Lewis, M. (2000). Self-conscious emotions: Embarrassment, pride, shame, and guilt. In M. Lewis & J. M. Haviland-Jones (Eds.), Handbook of emotions (2nd Edition; pp. 623–636). New York: Guilford Press

Martin, K. (1996). Puberty, sexuality, and the self: Boys and girls at adolescence. New York: Routledge

Miller, W. I. (1997). The anatomy of disgust. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press

Öhman, A. (2000). Fear and anxiety: Evolutionary, cognitive, and clinical perspectives. In M. Lewis & J. M. Haviland-Jones (Eds.), Handbook of emotions (2nd Edition; pp. 573–593). New York: Guilford Press

Plant, R. W., & Ryan, R. M. (1985). Intrinsic motivation and the effects of self-consciousness, self-awareness, and ego-involvement: An investigation of internally controlling styles. Journal of Personality, 53, 435–449CrossRef Google Scholar

Pollitt, K. (1985, December 12). Hers. New York Times. p. C-2

Quinn, D. M., & Crocker, J. (1999). When ideology hurts: Effects of belief in the Protestant ethic and feeling overweight on the psychological well-being of women. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77, 402–414CrossRef Google Scholar

Rich, A. (1976). Of woman born. New York: Bantam

Ridgeway, C. L. (1987). Nonverbal behavior, dominance, and the basis of status in task groups. American Sociological Review, 52, 683–694CrossRef Google Scholar

Roberts, T.-A. (in press). Female trouble: The menstrual self-evaluation scale and women's self-objectification. Psychology of Women Quarterly

Roberts, T.-A., Gettman, J., Konik, J., & Fredrickson, B. L. (2001, August). “Mere exposure:” Gender differences in the negative effects of priming a state of self-objectification. Paper presented at the annual American Psychological Association Convention, San Francisco, CA

Roberts, T.-A., Goldenberg, J. L., Power, C., & Pyszczynski, T. (2002). “Feminine protection”: The effects of menstruation on attitudes toward women. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 26, 131–139CrossRef Google Scholar

Roberts, T.-A., & Pennebaker, J. W. (1995). Gender differences in perceiving internal state: Toward a his and hers model of perceptual cue use. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 27, 143–175CrossRef Google Scholar

Rozee, P. (1988, August). The effects of fear of rape on working women. Paper presented at the meeting of the American Psychological Association, Atlanta, GA

Rubin, G. (1975). The traffic in women: Notes on the political economy of sex. In R. Reiter (Ed.), Toward an anthropology of women (pp. 157–210). New York: Monthly Review Press

Sherif, C. W. (1982). Needed concepts in the study of gender identity. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 6, 375–398CrossRef Google Scholar

Shrout, P. E., & Fiske, D. W. (1981). Nonverbal behaviors and social evaluation. Journal of Personality, 49, 115–128CrossRef Google Scholar

Shweder, R. A., Much, N. C., Mahapatra, M., & Park, L. (1997). The “Big Three” of morality (autonomy, community, divinity) and the “Big Three” explanations of suffering. In A. Brandt & P. Rozin (Eds.), Morality and health (pp. 119–169). New York: Routledge

Silberstein, L. R., Striegel-Moore, R., & Rodin, J. (1987). Feeling fat: A woman's shame. In H. B. Lewis (Ed.), The role of shame in symptom formation (pp. 89–108). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum

Snodgrass, S. E. (1985). Women's intuition: The effect of subordinate role on interpersonal sensitivity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 49, 146–155CrossRef Google Scholar

Snodgrass, S. E. (1992). Further effects of role versus gender on interpersonal sensitivity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 62, 154–158CrossRef Google Scholar

Stapley, J. C., & Haviland, J. M. (1989). Beyond depression: Gender differences in normal adolescents' emotional experiences. Sex Roles, 20, 295–308CrossRef Google Scholar

Stepper, S., & Strack, F. (1993). Proprioceptive determinants of emotional and non-emotional feelings. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 64, 211–220CrossRef Google Scholar

Tavris, C. (1989). Anger: The misunderstood emotion. New York: Simon & Schuster

Thorne, B. (1993). Gender play: Girls and boys in school. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press

Tiedens, L. Z. (2001). Anger and advancement versus sadness and subjugation: The effect of negative emotion expressions on social status conferral. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 80 (1), 86–94CrossRef Google Scholar PubMed

Tiedens, L. Z., Ellsworth, P. C., & Mesquita, B. (2000). Stereotypes about sentiments and status: Emotional expectations for high- and low-status group members. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 26 (5), 560–574CrossRef Google Scholar

Unger, R. K. (1979). Toward a redefinition of sex and gender. American Psychologist, 34, 1085–1094CrossRef Google Scholar

Unger, R. K. & Crawford, M. (1993). Commentary: Sex and gender – The troubled relationship between terms and concepts. Psychological Science, 4, 122–124CrossRef Google Scholar

West, C., & Zimmerman, D. H. (1987). Doing gender. Gender and Society, 1, 125–151CrossRef Google Scholar

Wolf, N. (1991). The beauty myth: How images of beauty are used against women. New York: William Morrow and Company

Wooley, S. C., & Wooley, O. W. (1980). Eating disorders: Anorexia and obesity. In A. M. Brodsky & R. Hare-Mustin (Eds.), Women and psychotherapy (pp. 135–158). New York: Guilford Press

Young, I. M. (1991). Throwing like a girl and other essays in feminist philosophy and social theory. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press

Accessibility standard: Unknown

Why this information is here

This section outlines the accessibility features of this content - including support for screen readers, full keyboard navigation and high-contrast display options. This may not be relevant for you.

Accessibility Information

Accessibility compliance for the PDF of this chapter is currently unknown and may be updated in the future.