TITLE:
What Can Trigger Chinese Female Self-Objectification: Revealing Clothes, Tight-Fitting Clothes, or Both?
AUTHORS:
Yixin Jiang
KEYWORDS:
Self-Objectification, Clothes, Objectification Theory, Chinese Female
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Social Sciences,
Vol.6 No.4,
April
28,
2018
ABSTRACT: We aimed to assess if type of clothing caused self-objectification. This study was based on the framework of Objectification Theory. 120 Chinese female undergraduates aged 17 - 25 years were divided into 4 groups: revealing tight-fitting clothes, revealing loose clothes, full tight-fitting clothes, and full loose clothes. They were asked to wear clothes of the most suitable size in two settings, a private setting and a public setting. In both settings, we measured state self-objectification before the participants changed into their original clothes. It was indicated that wearing both revealing and tight-fitting clothes could produce female state self-objectification in the Chinese sociocultural environment. In addition, the public setting led to greater state self-objectification than the private setting. We demonstrate that clothing type is an important contributor to self-objectification of contemporary young women and extend the scope and application of Objectification Theory.