The STEM Pipeline: Do Media and Objectified Body Consciousness Create an Early Exit for Middle School Girls?

Abstract

Girls and women are underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. Research has investigated various explanatory factors (e.g., lack of role models, sexism) in these patterns. However, to date, the roles of media use and body concerns have not been examined. This study investigated associations among appearance-focused social media behaviors (e.g., posting photos), objectified body consciousness (i.e., body shame, body surveillance), and attitudes toward math and science (i.e., self-expectancy, task value, cost, future plans) in a sample of U.S. middle school girls (N = 243). Results demonstrated that body shame partially mediated associations between appearance-focused social media behaviors and math and science attitudes. These findings suggest that media use and body concerns have implications for girls’ involvement in STEM fields.

Keywords

social media objectified body consciousness self-objectification academic outcomes STEM attitudes adolescent girls

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Ainin

Naqshbandi

M. M.

Moghavvemi

Jaafar

N. I.

(2015). Facebook usage, socialization and academic performance. Computers & Education, 83, 64-73. doi:10.1016/j.compedu.2014.12.018

American Association of University Women. (2015). Solving the equation: The variables for women’s success in engineering and computing. https://www.aauw.org/research/solving-the-equation/

American Psychological Association. (2007). Report of the APA task force on the sexualization of girls. https://www.apa.org/pi/wpo/sexualization.html

Anderson

Jiang

(2018, May 31). Teens, social media & technology 2018. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/

Ashcraft

(2002). Math anxiety: Personal, educational, and cognitive consequences. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 11(5), 181-185. doi:10.1111/1467-8721.00196

Atkinson

J. W.

(1964). An introduction to motivation. Princeton: Van Nostrand.

Aubrey

J. S.

Gerding

(2015). The cognitive tax of self-objectification: Examining sexually objectifying music videos and female emerging adults’ cognitive processing of subsequent advertising. Journal of Media Psychology: Theories, Methods, and Applications, 27(1), 22-32. doi:10.1027/1864-1105/a000128

Bell

B. T.

Cassarly

J. A.

Dunbar

(2018). Selfie-objectification: Self-objectification and positive feedback (“likes”) are associated with frequency of posting sexually objectifying self-images on social media. Body Image, 26, 83-89. doi:10.1016/j.bodyim.2018.06.005

Boepple

Ata

R. N.

Rum

Thompson

J. K.

(2016). Strong is the new skinny: A content analysis of fitspiration websites. Body Image, 17, 132-135. doi:10.1016/j.bodyim.2016.03.001

10.

Brown

C. S.

Leaper

(2010). Latina and European American girls’ experiences with academic sexism and their self-concepts in mathematics and science during adolescence. Sex Roles, 63(11-12), 860-870. doi:10.1007/s11199-010-9856-5

11.

Chua

T. H. H.

Chang

(2016). Follow me and like my beautiful selfies: Singapore teenage girls’ engagement in self-presentation and peer comparison on social media. Computers in Human Behavior, 55, 190-197. doi:10.1016/j.chb.2015.09.011

12.

Committee on STEM Education. (2018). Charting a course for success: America’s strategy for STEM education of the national science & technology council. https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/STEM-Education-Strategic-Plan-2018.pdf

13.

Common Sense Media. (2015). The Common Sense census: Media use by teens and tweens. https://www.commonsensemedia.org/

14.

Dakanalis

Timko

A. C.

Clerici

Riva

Carrà

(2017). Objectified body consciousness (OBC) in eating psychopathology: Construct validity, reliability, and measurement invariance of the 24-item OBC Scale in clinical and nonclinical adolescent samples. Assessment, 24(2), 252-274. doi:10.1177/1073191115602553

15.

Daniels

E. A.

Gillen

M. M.

(2015). Identity and body image: A call for new research. In McLean

Syed

(Eds.), The Oxford handbook of identity development (pp. 406-422). New York: Oxford University Press.

16.

Daniels

E. A.

Zurbriggen

E. L.

Ward

L. M.

(2020). Becoming an object: A review of self-objectification in girls. Body Image, 33, 278-299. doi:10.1016/j.bodyim.2020.02.016

17.

Deemer

E. D.

Thoman

D. B.

Chase

J. P.

Smith

J. L.

(2014). Feeling the threat: Stereotype threat as a contextual barrier to women’s science career choice intentions. Journal of Career Development, 41(2), 141-158. doi:10.1177/0894845313483003

18.

Eccles

J. S.

(2011). Understanding educational and occupational choices. Journal of Social Issues, 67(3), 644-648. doi:10.1111/j.1540-4560.2011.01718.x

19.

Eccles

J. S.

Wang

M.-T.

(2016). What motivates females and males to pursue careers in mathematics and science? International Journal of Behavioral Development, 40(2), 100-106. doi:10.1177/0165025415616201

20.

Eccles

J. S.

Wigfield

(1995). In the mind of an actor: The structure of adolescents’ achievement task values and expectancy-related beliefs. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 21(3), 215-225. doi:10.1177/0146167295213003

21.

Eccles

J. S.

Wigfield

(2002). Motivational beliefs, values, and goals. Annual Review of Psychology, 53(1), 109-132. doi:10.1146/annurev.psych.53.100901.135153

22.

Eccles

J. S.

Wigfield

(2020). From expectancy-value theory to situated expectancy-value theory: A developmental, social cognitive, and sociocultural perspective on motivation. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 61, Article 101859. Advance online publication. doi:10.1016/j.cedpsych.2020.101859

23.

Fredrickson

B. L.

Roberts

T.-A.

(1997). Objectification theory: Toward understanding women’s lived experiences and mental health risks. . Psychology of Women Quarterly, 21(2), 173-206. doi:10.1111/j.1471-6402.1997.tb00108.x

24.

Fredrickson

B. L.

Roberts

T.-A.

Noll

S. M.

Quinn

D. M.

Twenge

J. M.

(1998). That swimsuit becomes you: Sex differences in self-objectification, restrained eating, and math performance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 75(1), 269-284. doi:10.1037//0022-3514.75.1.269

25.

Gay

R. K.

Castano

(2010). My body or my mind: The impact of state and trait objectification on women’s cognitive resources. European Journal of Social Psychology, 40(5), 695-703. doi:10.1002/ejsp.731

26.

Ghaznavi

Taylor

L. D.

(2015). Bones, body parts, and sex appeal: An analysis of #thinspiration images on popular social media. Body Image, 14, 54-61. doi:10.1016/j.bodyim.2015.03.006

27.

Grabe

Hyde

J. S.

(2009). Body objectification, MTV, and psychological outcomes among female adolescents. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 39(12), 2840-2858. doi:10.1111/j.1559-1816.2009.00552.x

28.

Halpern

D. F.

Benbow

C. P.

Geary

D. C.

Gur

R. C.

Hyde

J. S.

Gernsbacher

M. A.

(2007). The science of sex differences in science and mathematics. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 8(1), 1-51. doi:10.1111/j.1529-1006.2007.00032.x

29.

Handelsman

Cantor

Carnes

Denton

Fine

Grosz

. . .Sheridan

(2005). More women in science. Science, 309(5738), 1190-1191. doi:10.1126/1113252

30.

Hebl

M. R.

King

E. B.

Lin

(2004). The swimsuit becomes us all: Ethnicity, gender, and vulnerability to self-objectification. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 30(10), 1322-1331. doi:10.1177/0146167204264052

31.

Herrmann

S. D.

Adelman

R. M.

Bodford

J. E.

Graudejus

Okun

M. A.

Kwan

V. S. Y.

(2016). The effects of a female role model on academic performance and persistence of women in STEM courses. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 38(5), 258-268. doi:10.1080/01973533.2016.1209757

32.

Hyde

J. S.

Durik

A. M.

(2005). Gender, competence, and motivation. In Elliot

A. J.

Dweck

C. S.

(Eds.), Handbook of competence and motivation (pp. 375-391). New York: Guilford Press.

33.

Javidi

Sheybani

(2010). Making youth excited about STEM education. Journal of Computing Sciences in Colleges, 26(1), 140-147.

34.

Kiefer

Sekaquaptewa

Barczyk

(2006). When appearance concerns make women look bad: Solo status and body image concern diminish women’s academic performance. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 42(1), 78-86. doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2004.12.004

35.

Kline

R. B.

(2005). Principles and practice of structural equation modeling. New York: Guilford Press.

36.

Kosovich

J. J.

Hulleman

C. S.

Barron

K. E.

Getty

(2014). A practical measure of student motivation: Establishing validity evidence for the expectancy-value-cost scale in middle school. Journal of Early Adolescence, 35(5-6), 790-816. doi:10.1177/0272431614556890

37.

Lindberg

S. M.

Hyde

J. S.

McKinley

N. M.

(2006). A measure of objectified body consciousness for preadolescent and adolescent youth. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 30(1), 65-76. doi:10.1111/j.1471-6402.2006.00263.x

38.

Liu

Kirschner

P. A.

Karpinski

A. C.

(2017). A meta-analysis of the relationship of academic performance and social network site use among adolescents and young adults. Computers in Human Behavior, 77, 148-157. doi:10.1016/j.chb.2017.08.039

39.

Manago

A. M.

(2015). Identity development in the digital age: The case of social networking sites. In McLean

K. C.

Syed

(Eds.), The Oxford handbook of identity development (pp. 508-524). New York: Oxford University Press.

40.

Manago

A. M.

Ward

L. M.

Lemm

K. M.

Reed

Seabrook

(2015). Facebook involvement, objectified body consciousness, body shame, and sexual assertiveness in college women and men. Sex Roles: A Journal of Research, 72(1-2), 1-14. doi:10.1007/s11199-014-0441-1

41.

Maxwell

S. E.

Cole

D. A.

(2007). Bias in cross-sectional analyses of longitudinal mediation. Psychological Methods, 12(1), 23-44. doi:10.1037/1082-989X.12.1.23

42.

McKenney

S. J.

Bigler

R. S.

(2016). High heels, low grades: Internalized sexualization and academic orientation among adolescent girls. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 26(1), 30-36. doi:10.1111/jora.12179

43.

McKinley

N. M.

Hyde

J. S.

(1996). The Objectified Body Consciousness Scale: Development and validation. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 20(2), 181-215. doi:10.1111/j.1471-6402.1996.tb00467.x

44.

Meier

E. P.

Gray

(2014). Facebook photo activity associated with body image disturbance in adolescent girls. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 17(4), 199-206. doi:10.1089/cyber.2013.0305

45.

Mingoia

Hutchinson

A. D.

Wilson

Gleaves

D. H.

(2017). The relationship between social networking site use and the internalization of a thin ideal in females: A meta-analytic review. Frontiers in Psychology, 8. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01351

46.

Moradi

Huang

(2008). Objectification theory and psychology of women: A decade of advances and future directions. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 32(4), 377-398. doi:10.1111/j.1471-6402.2008.00452.x

47.

Murnen

S. K.

(2011). Gender and body images. In Cash

T. F.

Smolak

(Eds.), Body image: A handbook of science, practice, and prevention (2nd ed., pp. 173-179). New York: Guilford Press.

48.

Muthén

L. K.

Muthén

B. O.

(2017). Mplus user’s guide (8th ed.). Los Angeles: Author.

49.

National Science Foundation. (2016). Science and engineering indicators. https://www.nsf.gov/statistics/2016/nsb20161/#/report

50.

Pacilli

M. G.

Tomasetto

Cadinu

(2016). Exposure to sexualized advertisements disrupts children’s math performance by reducing working memory. Sex Roles, 74(9-10), 389-398. doi:10.1007/s11199-016-0581-6

51.

Pekrun

Linnenbrink-Garcia

(2012). Academic emotions and student engagement. In Christenson

S. L.

Reschly

A. L.

Wylie

(Eds.), Handbook of research on student engagement (pp. 259-282). New York: Springer.

52.

Plass

J. L.

Kalyuga

(2019). Four ways of considering emotion in cognitive load theory. Educational Psychology Review, 31(2), 339-359. doi:10.1007/s10648-019-09473-5

53.

Quinn

D. M.

Kallen

R. W.

Twenge

J. M.

Fredrickson

B. L.

(2006). The disruptive effects of self-objectification on performance. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 30(1), 59-64. doi:10.1111/j.1471-6402.2006.00262.x

54.

Robnett

R. D.

(2016). Gender bias in STEM fields: Variation in prevalence and links to STEM self-concept. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 40(1), 65-79. doi:10.1177/0361684315596162

55.

Robnett

R. D.

John

J. E.

(2020). “It’s wrong to exclude girls from something they love” adolescents’ attitudes about sexism in science, technology, engineering, and math. Child Development, 91(1), e231-e248. doi:10.1111/cdev.13185

56.

Robnett

R. D.

Thoman

S. E.

(2017). STEM success expectancies and achievement among women in STEM majors. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 52(1), 91-100. doi:10.1016/j.appdev.2017.07.003

57.

Ruckel

Hill

(2017). Look @ me 2.0: Self-sexualization in Facebook photographs, body surveillance and body image. Sexuality & Culture: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly, 21(1), 15-35. doi:10.1007/s12119-016-9376-8

58.

Saiphoo

A. N.

Vahedi

(2019). A meta-analytic review of the relationship between social media use and body image disturbance. Computers in Human Behavior, 101, 259-275. doi:10.1016/j.chb.2019.07.028

59.

Sarabia

Estévez

(2016). Sexualized behaviors on Facebook. Computers in Human Behavior, 61, 219-226. doi:10.1016/j.chb.2016.03.037

60.

Smith

J. L.

Brown

E. R.

Thoman

D. B.

Deemer

E. D.

(2015). Losing its expected communal value: How stereotype threat undermines women’s identity as research scientists. Social Psychology of Education: An International Journal, 18(3), 443-466. doi:10.1007/s11218-015-9296-8

61.

Strelan

Hargreaves

(2005). Women who objectify other women: The vicious circle of objectification? Sex Roles, 52(9-10), 707-712. doi:10.1007/s11199-005-3737-3

62.

Terán

Yan

Aubrey

J. S.

(2019). “But first let me take a selfie”: US adolescent girls’ selfie activities, self-objectification, imaginary audience beliefs, and appearance concerns. Journal of Children and Media, 14(3), 343-360. doi:10.1080/17482798.2019.1697319

63.

Tiggemann

Slater

(2013). Netgirls: The Internet, Facebook, and body image concern in adolescent girls. International Journal of Eating Disorders, 46(6), 630-633. doi:10.1002/eat.22141

64.

Tiggemann

Slater

(2014). NetTweens: The internet and body image concerns in preteenage girls. The Journal of Early Adolescence, 34(5), 606-620. doi:10.1177/0272431613501083

65.

Turner

J. E.

Schallert

D. L.

(2001). Expectancy-value relationships of shame reactions and shame resiliency. Journal of Educational Psychology, 93(2), 320-329. doi:10.1037//0022-0663.93.2.320

66.

Tyson

D. F.

Linnenbrink-Garcia

Hill

N. E.

(2009). Regulating debilitating emotions in the context of performance: Achievement goal orientations, achievement-elicited emotions, and socialization contexts. Human Development, 52(6), 329-359. doi:10.1159/000242348

67.

Valiente

Swanson

Eisenberg

(2012). Linking students’ emotions and academic achievement: When and why emotions matter. Child Development Perspectives, 6(2), 129-135. doi:10.1111/j.1750-8606.2011.00192.x

68.

Valiente

Swanson

Lemery-Chalfant

(2012). Kindergarteners’ temperament, classroom engagement, and student-teacher relationship: Moderation by effortful control. Social Development, 21(3), 558-576. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9507.2011.00640.x

69.

Vandenbosch

Eggermont

(2016). The interrelated roles of mass media and social media in adolescents’ development of an objectified self-concept. Communication Research, 43(8), 1116-1140. doi:10.1177/0093650215600488

70.

Wang

M.-T.

Degol

J. L.

(2013). Motivational pathways to STEM career choices: Using expectancy-value perspective to understand individual and gender differences in STEM fields. Developmental Review, 33(4), 304-340. doi:10.1016/j.dr.2013.08.001

71.

Wang

M.-T.

Degol

J. L.

(2017). Gender gap in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM): Current knowledge, implications for practice, policy, and future directions. Education Psychology Review, 29(1), 199-140. doi:10.1007/s10648-015-9355-x

72.

Ward

L. M.

(2016). Media and sexualization: State of empirical research, 1995-2015. Journal of Sex Research, 53(4-5), 560-577. doi:10.1080/00224499.2016.1142496

73.

Yanover

Thompson

J. K.

(2008). Self-reported interference with academic functioning and eating disordered symptoms: Associations with multiple dimensions of body image. Body Image, 5, 326-328. doi:10.1016/j.bodyim.2008.03.008

74.

Zheng

Luo

(2019). Selfie posting on social networking sites and female adolescents’ self-objectification: The moderating role of imaginary audience ideation. Sex Roles: A Journal of Research, 80(5-6), 325-331. doi:10.1007/s11199-018-0937-1