How are Chinese women and men affected by sexual objectification? Self-objectification and enjoyment of sexualization across perpetrators

Abstract

Interpersonal sexual objectification is a pervasive phenomenon among women and has been increasingly recognized in men. Research suggests sexual objectification is associated with two contrasting psychological outcomes: self-objectification and enjoyment of sexualization. Yet, little is known about how these outcomes vary by interpersonal context and gender, particularly in Asian contexts. To this end, two studies were conducted in the Chinese cultural context. In Study 1, a two-stage process was used to collect and screen objectifying comments towards women and men. In the first stage, 67 women and 41 men were recruited to generate a pool of comments. In the second stage, another 75 women and 50 men were recruited to evaluate these comments, resulting in eight representative comments for each gender. In Study 2, 239 women and 194 men participated in a 4 × 2 experiment examining how the perpetrator’s role (stranger, colleague, friend, or intimate partner) and the comment valence (positive or negative) affected self-objectification and enjoyment of sexualization. Results revealed distinct response patterns between genders. For women, positive objectifying comments led to lower self-objectification compared to negative comments in acquaintance contexts (i.e., colleagues, friends, and partners). However, no differences were found in the context with strangers. In contrast, men’s self-objectification remained stable across perpetrators and comment valences. Women’s enjoyment of sexualization was highest from intimate partners than from strangers, colleagues, and friends, whereas men’s enjoyment of sexualization was relatively high across perpetrators but lowest with colleagues. These findings extend objectification theory to the Chinese setting, highlighting gender-specific patterns in how interpersonal contexts shape psychological responses to sexual objectification.