**4. Discussion**

This is the first study to differentiate the effects of positive vs. negative aspects of sexual awareness/consciousness on coping and psychological functioning. While men scored higher than women on both positive sexual awareness (sexual consciousness and sexual assertiveness) and sexual self-monitoring, the patterns of correlations and path analysis results suggest that sexual self-monitoring has different meanings and implications for men vs. women. A study by Gillen et al. [39], in fact, suggests that such sexual self-consciousness may reinforce traditional gender beliefs about sexuality. As expected, positive sexual awareness was associated with greater adaptive coping in men and women, but sexual self-monitoring was more associated with avoidant coping in women than men. In support of Objectification Theory, sexual self-monitoring and avoidant coping were more predictive of psychopathological symptoms in women than men, and the relationships between sexual self-monitoring and psychopathological symptoms were significantly mediated by avoidant coping only in women. These results indicate that women who score high in sexual self-monitoring tend to engage in avoidant coping styles, which in turn contributes to higher rates of reported symptoms of depression, anxiety, somatization, and disordered eating. In contrast, women who scored high on sexual consciousness/assertiveness were found to engage in more active coping styles, although no mediation relationship was found between this and symptoms of mental illness. In the context of Objectification Theory, these results are to be expected. Sexual self-monitoring, which indicates a person's fixation on his/her attractiveness to others, can serve as an indicator of sexual objectification, as women who experience objectification often become fixated on their body and attractiveness to others [19].

The implications for this study are two-fold. First, this study supports the idea that the sexual objectification of women contributes to poor mental health outcomes by taking away their sense of agency. Second, this study suggests that therapeutic interventions which incorporate agency may be beneficial for work with women, including perhaps those who have suffered some form of sexual violence.

**55**

**Author details**

Catherine Baggett1

*Don't Objectify Me!: Sexual Self-Monitoring, Coping, and Psychological Maladjustment*

While the sample was recruited from an ethnically diverse population, all participants were college students from a university in a particular region of the U.S., which limits generalizability. The cross-sectional nature of the research also limits causal inference. Future research should focus on how experiences of objectification, especially in women, lead to maladaptive coping behaviors and increased risk of psychopathology. In addition to positive and negative sexual awareness, future studies should directly measure self-perceived self-objectification [40]. Research on therapeutic practices with women should consider ways in which sexual and gender empowerment may produce salutary effects through increasing adaptive coping

Future studies of objectification should also focus on the other forms objectification takes, such as treating a person as a servant or otherwise denying their humanity [41]. This is prevalent in cases of domestic violence, where an abusive partner abuses in order to maintain power and control over his partner, so that he/ she remains focused on meeting the abuser's needs [42]. This study also calls for an exploration of objectification and its effects on coping and psychological maladjustment in other populations. Members of racial/ethnic minorities in the U.S. often experience the objectification of their bodies [43], and children who suffer child-

Respect for the autonomy of others is at the core of many moral philosophies. Martin Buber [45] explicitly distinguishes between I-thou relationships between autonomous conscious beings versus I-it relationships between such beings and inanimate objects. I-thou relationships require a moral consciousness, while treating a person as if they were an object is inherently immoral. Meanwhile, psychologists [46] have recognized the role of autonomy in enabling moral consciousness and behavior. The present study shows how the objectification of women in the context of their sexuality not only strips women of their autonomy, with consequent deleterious effects on their psychological functioning, but is also inherently immoral. Beyond working to achieve political and economic gender equality, public policies and educational practices should also work to encourage women to be empowered in their sexuality rather than objects in a male-controlled world.

\* and Julie Nagoshi<sup>2</sup>

© 2020 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,

hood abuse may also have parents who view them as objects [44].

, Craig Nagoshi1

2 Arizona State University, Phoenix, Arizona, USA

\*Address all correspondence to: cnagoshi@uta.edu

provided the original work is properly cited.

1 University of Texas at Arlington, Arlington, Texas, USA

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.90997*

**4.1 Limitations and future directions**

behaviors.

*Don't Objectify Me!: Sexual Self-Monitoring, Coping, and Psychological Maladjustment DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.90997*

### **4.1 Limitations and future directions**

*Psycho-Social Aspects of Human Sexuality and Ethics*

(χ2

**4. Discussion**

bias corrected bootstrapping of confidence intervals option in Mplus version 5.21 [38] with maximum likelihood estimation using the covariance matrix. Missing

Results of the path analyses are presented separately for the male and female estimates, as the difference chi-square for this model approached significance

 = 30.267, 21 df, *p* = 0.087, CFI = 0.967, RMSEA = 0.047), and there was a theoretical reason for expecting gender differences in the pathways. It is notable, that while positive sexual awareness was significantly positively predictive of adaptive coping for men and women, sexual self-monitoring was only significantly predictive of avoidant coping in women. Controlling for sexual monitoring, avoidant coping was a significant predictor of somatization, depression-anxiety, and eating disorder symptoms for women and of eating disorder symptoms in men. The direct paths from sexual self-monitoring to psychopathology were not significant for women or men. Bootstrapped mediation analyses indicated that for men the relationships between sexual self-monitoring and psychopathology were not significantly mediated by avoidant coping (95% confidence interval: −0.010, 0.063 for somatization; −0.008, 0.060 for depression-anxiety; −0.004, 0.033 for eating disorders). In contrast, all of these mediated pathways were significant for women at the 0.01 significance level (99% confidence interval, 0.004, 0.085 for somatization; 0.011, 0.134 for depression-anxiety; 0.004, 0.037 for eating disorders). None of the indirect paths involving positive sexual awareness or adaptive coping were significant.

This is the first study to differentiate the effects of positive vs. negative aspects of sexual awareness/consciousness on coping and psychological functioning. While men scored higher than women on both positive sexual awareness (sexual consciousness and sexual assertiveness) and sexual self-monitoring, the patterns of correlations and path analysis results suggest that sexual self-monitoring has different meanings and implications for men vs. women. A study by Gillen et al. [39], in fact, suggests that such sexual self-consciousness may reinforce traditional gender beliefs about sexuality. As expected, positive sexual awareness was associated with greater adaptive coping in men and women, but sexual self-monitoring was more associated with avoidant coping in women than men. In support of Objectification Theory, sexual self-monitoring and avoidant coping were more predictive of psychopathological symptoms in women than men, and the relationships between sexual self-monitoring and psychopathological symptoms were significantly mediated by avoidant coping only in women. These results indicate that women who score high in sexual self-monitoring tend to engage in avoidant coping styles, which in turn contributes to higher rates of reported symptoms of depression, anxiety, somatization, and disordered eating. In contrast, women who scored high on sexual consciousness/assertiveness were found to engage in more active coping styles, although no mediation relationship was found between this and symptoms of mental illness. In the context of Objectification Theory, these results are to be expected. Sexual self-monitoring, which indicates a person's fixation on his/her attractiveness to others, can serve as an indicator of sexual objectification, as women who experience objectification often

become fixated on their body and attractiveness to others [19].

The implications for this study are two-fold. First, this study supports the idea that the sexual objectification of women contributes to poor mental health outcomes by taking away their sense of agency. Second, this study suggests that therapeutic interventions which incorporate agency may be beneficial for work with women, including perhaps those who have suffered some form of sexual violence.

data were handled using full information maximum likelihood.

**54**

While the sample was recruited from an ethnically diverse population, all participants were college students from a university in a particular region of the U.S., which limits generalizability. The cross-sectional nature of the research also limits causal inference. Future research should focus on how experiences of objectification, especially in women, lead to maladaptive coping behaviors and increased risk of psychopathology. In addition to positive and negative sexual awareness, future studies should directly measure self-perceived self-objectification [40]. Research on therapeutic practices with women should consider ways in which sexual and gender empowerment may produce salutary effects through increasing adaptive coping behaviors.

Future studies of objectification should also focus on the other forms objectification takes, such as treating a person as a servant or otherwise denying their humanity [41]. This is prevalent in cases of domestic violence, where an abusive partner abuses in order to maintain power and control over his partner, so that he/ she remains focused on meeting the abuser's needs [42]. This study also calls for an exploration of objectification and its effects on coping and psychological maladjustment in other populations. Members of racial/ethnic minorities in the U.S. often experience the objectification of their bodies [43], and children who suffer childhood abuse may also have parents who view them as objects [44].

Respect for the autonomy of others is at the core of many moral philosophies. Martin Buber [45] explicitly distinguishes between I-thou relationships between autonomous conscious beings versus I-it relationships between such beings and inanimate objects. I-thou relationships require a moral consciousness, while treating a person as if they were an object is inherently immoral. Meanwhile, psychologists [46] have recognized the role of autonomy in enabling moral consciousness and behavior. The present study shows how the objectification of women in the context of their sexuality not only strips women of their autonomy, with consequent deleterious effects on their psychological functioning, but is also inherently immoral. Beyond working to achieve political and economic gender equality, public policies and educational practices should also work to encourage women to be empowered in their sexuality rather than objects in a male-controlled world.
