With the popularity of online social activities, increasing information on sexual objectification appears in the process of online social activities, which not only speeds up the formation of women's self-objectification, but also increases the level of body shame. This study aimed to investigate the relationship between experiences of online interpersonal sexual objectification and body shame, as well as the mediating role of internalization of beauty ideals and self-objectification and the moderating role of self-compassion.
Female college students (N=350) voluntarily participated in this study and completed an online survey. They filled out questionnaires, including demographic questions, the Online Interpersonal Sexual Objectification Experience Scale, the Body Shame Scale, the Internalization of Beauty Ideals Scale, the Chinese Version of Self-Objectification Beliefs, the Behaviors Scale, and the Self-Compassion Scale. The final sample size was 339, after deleting 11 cases with problematic responses. The ages of participants ranged from 18 to 35 years (Mage = 20.29 years, SD = 2.99 years). Data were collected and analyzed with SPSS 22.0. The bias corrected percentile bootstrap method was used to analyze the moderated mediation model. Results showed that the common method variance was not supported in this study.
The results indicated that: (1) Experiences of online interpersonal sexual objectification were positively correlated with internalization of beauty ideals, self-objectification and body shame. Internalization of beauty ideals was positively correlated with self-objectification and body shame. Self-objectification was also positively correlated with body shame. Self-compassion was negatively correlated with interpersonal sexual objectification experiences, body shame, internalization of beauty ideals, and self-objectification. (2) Online interpersonal sexual objectification experiences were positively predicted internalization of beauty ideals, β = .40, p < .001; Online interpersonal sexual objectification experiences were also positively associated with self-objectification, β = .13, p < .01, and internalization of beauty ideals was positively linked with self-objectification, β = .45, p<.001, and self-objectification were also positively associated with body shame, β = .29, p < .001. The indirect effect of online interpersonal sexual objectification experiences via internalization of beauty ideals and self-objectification was .05 (95% CI = [ .03, .08]). This result indicated that internalization of beauty ideals and self-objectification mediated the relationship between online interpersonal sexual objectification experiences and body shame. (3) Self-compassion negatively predicted interpersonal of beauty ideals, β = -.20, p<.001, but the interaction of online interpersonal sexual objectification experiences and self-compassion was not significantly predicative of internalization of beauty ideals, β = .00, p > .05. Self-compassion negatively predicted self-objectification, β = -.28, p < .001. But the interaction of interpersonal of beauty ideals and self-compassion was not significantly predicative of self-objectification, β = .00, p > .05; and the interaction of online interpersonal sexual objectification experiences and self-compassion significantly predicted self-objectification, β = -.09, p < .05 (95% CI = [- .17, - .01]),
These findings indicated that the relationship between experiences of online interpersonal sexual objectification and body shame via internalization of beauty ideals was not moderated by self-compassion, but the relationship between online experiences of interpersonal sexual objectification and body shame through self-objectification was moderated by self-compassion.
Key words
online interpersonal sexual objectification experiences /
body shame /
internalization of beauty ideals /
self-objectification /
self-compassion /
female college students
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