The Price of Sexy: Viewers’ Perceptions of a Sexualized Versus

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Using an experimental methodology, the present study assessed adolescent girls’ and

young adult women’s perceptions of a peer who presented herself on Facebook in either

a sexualized or nonsexualized manner. Fifty-eight adolescent girls and 60 young adult

women viewed a Facebook profile with either a sexualized profile photo or a nonsexu-

alized profile photo and then evaluated the profile owner. Results indicated that the

sexualized profile owner was considered less physically attractive, less socially attrac-

tive, and less competent to complete tasks. There was a main effect of age in the

judgment of social attractiveness, with young adult women giving higher ratings than

adolescent girls. There were no other main effects of age or interactions between age

and condition. Findings suggest that using a sexualized profile photo on Facebook

comes with relational costs for girls and women. Strategies for educating young people

about new media use and sexualization are discussed.

Keywords: sexualization, objectification, media, social networking, social media

There is considerable cultural pressure on

girls and women in the United States, beginning

in childhood, to portray themselves as sexy

(American Psychological Association [APA],

2007; Levin & Kilbourne, 2008; Zurbriggen &

Roberts, 2013). Indeed, current standards for

female beauty include a sexy ideal body

(Murnen, 2011; Murnen & Smolak, 2013;

Tiggemann, 2013). This standard is highly vis-

ible through traditional media such as TV and

magazines (Stankiewicz & Rosselli, 2008;

Ward, 2003). Evidence suggests that sexualiza-

tion is also apparent in new media (Hall, West,

& McIntyre, 2012). Complying with the sexy

cultural mandate brings girls and women bene-

fits, such as increased interest from boys and

men, as well as costs, such as lower evaluations

of competence (Murnen & Smolak, 2013). In

the present study, we investigated a possible

cost of self-sexualizing for adolescent girls and

young adult women: negative evaluations by

other girls and women. Specifically, we as-

sessed adolescent girls’ and young adult wom-

en’s perceptions of a peer who self-sexualizes

on Facebook. Because social networking is tre-

mendously popular among young people (Boyd,

2007; Lenhart et al., 2011), it is especially im-

portant to investigate how sexualization oper-

ates through this cultural activity. Furthermore,

our study makes a novel contribution to the

research literature by examining self-sexualiza-

tion through user-generated media and by in-

cluding adolescent girls in addition to young

adult women in our sample.

Youth Media Practices

Youth today are growing up in an unprece-

dented media environment. On average, young

people, aged 8 to 18 years, spend 7.5 hr per day

engaged with media (Rideout, Foehr, & Rob-

This article was published Online First July 14, 2014.

Elizabeth A. Daniels, College of Liberal Arts, Depart-

ment of Psychology, Oregon State University Cascades;

Eileen L. Zurbriggen, Social Sciences Division, Department

of Psychology, University of California Santa Cruz.

This research was supported by a Circle of Excellence

grant from Oregon State University Cascades. We thank the

many research assistants at OSU Cascades, who assisted on

this project for their careful work, especially Monika Cas-

taneda, and the participants who volunteered their time to

take part in this study. An earlier version of this project was

presented at the 2012 Biennial Society for Research on

Adolescence Meeting, Vancouver, BC, Canada.

Correspondence concerning this article should be ad-

dressed to Elizabeth A. Daniels, University of Colorado at

Colorado Springs, 1420 Austin Bluffs Parkway, Colorado

Springs, CO 80918. E-mail: daniels.psychology@gmail.com

This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.

This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

Psychology of Popular Media Culture © 2014 American Psychological Association

2016, Vol. 5, No. 1, 2–14 2160-4134/16/$12.00 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/ppm0000048

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