Materialism predicts young Chinese women’s self-objectification and body surveillance

Abstract

Previous research on antecedents of women’s self-objectification mainly focuses on situational factors whereas our study examined whether women’s values on materialism would predict their self-objectification and body surveillance in a sample of 218 undergraduate women in south China. Specifically, we proposed that materialism would increase women’s tendency to regard sexual attractiveness as capital for them to gain positive life outcomes (i.e., capitalization of sexual attractiveness, CSA), and the tendency to have appearance-contingent self-worth (i.e., appearance CSW), which would in turn predict their self-objectification and body surveillance. Results provided support for the proposed theoretical model. Specifically, CSA and appearance CSW mediated the relationship between materialism and women’s self-objectification, whereas appearance CSW mediated the relationship between materialism and women’s body surveillance. These results expand the scope of investigation by incorporating Chinese samples and suggest that in addition to socio-cultural and interpersonal predictors, women’s values can contribute to the development of an objectifying perspective on themselves. Therefore, interventions on women’s values combined with attempts to change sexually-objectifying environments are both critical in reducing self-objectification and body surveillance in women.