Sarah J Gervai
Dados Biográficos
| ID | 2936904 |
|---|---|
| NOME | Sarah J Gervai |
| PRENOMES | Sarah J |
| SOBRENOME | Gervai |
| ASSINATURA | GERVAI S J |
| AFILIAÇÕES | University of Nebraska–Lincoln |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-2667-6370 |
| VERIFICADO | Sim |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 54 |
| TOTAL DE CITAÇÕES | 256 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 54 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMEIRO ANO DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2005 |
| ANO MAIS RECENTE DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2026 |
| ÍNDICE H | 8 |
Boundary-Setting at Sexual Debut Predicts Later Sexual Wellbeing Including Communication, Condom Use Negotiation, Exposure to Coercive Sex, and Pleasure Deservingness in Young Adults
Little is known about how first partnered sexual experiences - i.e. sexual debut - contribute to long term sexual outcomes. Using a mixed methods approach, we analyzed quantitative and open-ended items from an online, cross-sectional survey of 856 undergraduates from the Midwestern United States, exploring links between sexual debut communication and current sexual communication satisfaction, condom use attitudes, lifetime sexual coercion, and pl…
The Pregnancy-Related Objectification Beliefs Scale (PROBS)
A better understanding of reproductive objectification—people reducing pregnant women to reproductive objects—could have both theoretical and societal import, but no validated measures exist to examine this construct. The purpose of the present work was to develop and validate the Pregnancy-Related Objectification Beliefs Scale (PROBS). In Study 1, we generated a pool of items and conducted exploratory factor analysis to provide preliminary evide…
Abortion Stigma and Dehumanization as Reproductive Control
In this study, we examined how sexual objectification, abortion circumstance, and sexist attitudes interacted to affect abortion stigma and dehumanization of women who have abortions. A total of 237 participants were randomly assigned to a vignette depicting a woman who was either (a) sexually objectified or (b) not sexually objectified and who sought an abortion in either (a) a typical circumstance (i.e., ill timed) or (b) an exceptionalized cir…
The Role of Sexual Goals Fit in Interactions
In the current article, we tested the social interaction model of objectification to explore the effects of the activation and compatibility of sexual goals on women's perceptions of sexual objectification and behavioral intentions. Studies 1 ( N = 272) and 2 ( N = 141), conducted in Italy, demonstrated the importance of women's sexual goals in shaping favorable perceptions and subsequent behavioral intentions in sexually objectifying interaction…
Body Shame and Sexual Sensation Seeking Contribute to Associations Between Interpersonal Objectification Experiences and Sex-Linked Substance Use Among Women in College
Objectification theory suggests that women who are treated as sexual objects may disengage from internal bodily experiences, increasing their risk for sexual dysfunction. Extending this framework, it is possible that when objectification dulls women's sexual sensation, they turn to substances they believe will heighten sexual sensation (i.e. sex-linked substance use; SLSU). The present study examined relationships between interpersonal sexual obj…
Love Me Inside Out
The purpose of the present research was to investigate how objectification manifests in romantic relationships and its determining features. Despite abundant literature on sexual objectification, there are few studies about body and appearance valuation between romantic partners. Therefore, we aimed to identify concrete behavioral exemplars of how objectification manifests and is interpreted in the context of romantic relationships. Likewise, we …
Objectification, Sexism, and Attitudes About Abortion Access
In this study, we evaluated whether objectifying views of women, including objectifying stereotypes about Black women, are related to attitudes toward abortion access, and whether such links are mediated by benevolent and hostile sexism. Path analyses revealed that multiple indicators of objectification were associated with lower support for abortion access via benevolent and hostile sexist attitudes. Specifically, sexually objectifying behaviors…
Associations Between Women’s and Men’s Conformity to Gender Norms and Bystander Intervention to Disrupt Sexual Assault
The object of my intoxication
This study investigated dehumanization of one’s intimate partner and alcohol consumption as predictors of intimate partner aggression (IPA). We integrated theories of dehumanization, alcohol, and intimate partner violence to examine relational-level influences on perpetration of IPA, and conducted an initial test of a novel framework explaining IPA risk in a large college sample of coupled individuals. We robustly assessed partner dehumanization …
Alcohol and Sexual Violence
A triangulation study of young Women's motivations for sending nudes to men
An Integrated Conceptual Framework Linking Attachment Insecurity to Increased Risk for Both Enacting and Experiencing Objectification
Sexual objectification (i.e., reducing a person to their appearance, body, or sex appeal and functions) is a significant risk factor for negative health outcomes. In the present investigation, we examined multiple manifestations of objectification (i.e., objectification of others, objectification of self, and objectification by others) in an interpersonal context. We merged objectification theory with attachment theory, one of the most prominent …
Abortion Decisions as Humanizing Acts
Women-centered anti-abortion rhetoric, grounded in ostensibly positive beliefs that pregnant people are precious objects who must be protected from having abortions, has proliferated anti-abortion activism and legislation. However, abortion stigma, marked by negative perceptions of people who terminate pregnancies, is the most widely used theoretical tool for understanding the social and psychological implications of abortion. In this article, we…
Self-Objectification During the Perinatal Period
Alcohol and Sexual Violence
Does the affirmative consent standard increase the accuracy of sexual assault perceptions? It depends on how you learn about the standard
OBJECTIVE: Colleges and universities are increasingly adopting affirmative consent standards of sexual assault, in which consent is defined as conscious and voluntary "yeses" given throughout a sexual interaction. We examined the impact of affirmative consent standards on perceptions of assault and consent. HYPOTHESES: We hypothesized that in sexual assault scenarios involving physical force or verbal coercion, exposure to the consent standard wo…
On Methods and Marshmallows
In this commentary, we argue that feminist science and open science can benefit from each other’s wisdom and critiques in service of creating systems that produce the highest quality science with the maximum potential for improving the lives of women. To do this, we offer a constructive analysis, focusing on common methods used in open science, including open materials and data, preregistration, and large sample sizes, and illuminate potential be…
The Sexual Objectification and Alcohol Use Link
Does tipping facilitate sexual objectification? The effect of tips on sexual harassment of bar and restaurant servers
Purpose In many countries, service workers' (e.g. restaurant staff, bartenders) income depends highly on tips. Such workers are often female and targeted by sexual harassment. The purpose of this paper was to investigate whether the mode of compensation (tips vs. no tips) could play a causal role in the perceived legitimacy of sexual harassment. Design/methodology/approach In an experimental study (N = 161), the authors manipulated the source of …
Exploring the bidirectional connection between belonging and women’s self-sexualization
Women’s self-sexualization and belonging may be inextricably connected. Self-sexualization, or intentionally engaging in activities to appear sexually appealing to others, may carry intrapersonal costs but also interpersonal benefits. Integrating objectification, belonging, and ostracism theories, we tested whether social exclusion increases women’s self-sexualization and whether self-sexualization reduces anticipated social exclusion. First, we …
How cultural orientation and self-compassion shape objectified body consciousness for women from America, Belgium, Russia, and Thailand
According to objectification theory, being treated as an object leads women to engage in self-objectification, which in turn increases body surveillance and body shame, impairing women’s mental health. While most studies focusing on self-objectification rely heavily on Western populations that emphasize individualism, the current work investigates the phenomenon of body surveillance and body shame in a cross-cultural framework, involving a compar…
Self-fulfilling objectification in relationships
Interpersonal objectification shapes women’s sense of self, increasing self-objectification. While objectification is theorized to occur with consequences for self-objectification in romantic relationships, little research has examined this possibility. This experiment sampled 61 heterosexual couples to examine effects of objectification in relationships. Men focused on their partner’s appearance, or her as a person, before interacting with her. …
An Initial Test of the Cosmetics Dehumanization Hypothesis
Perceived Humanization by Intimate Partners during Pregnancy Is Associated with fewer Depressive Symptoms, Less Body Dissatisfaction, and Greater Sexual Satisfaction through Reduced Self-Objectificati…
You Can Catch More Flies with Honey than Vinegar”
Power and the Creation of Patronizing Environments
This work tested the following hypothesis: When powerful men stereotype their female subordinates in masculine domains, they behave in patronizing ways that affect the performance of their subordinates. Experiment 1 examined the stereotyping tendencies and patronizing behaviors of the powerful. Findings revealed that powerful men who stereotyped their female subordinates (i.e., those who were weakness focused) gave female subordinates few valued …
When What You See Is What You Get
This research examined the effects of the objectifying gaze on math performance, interaction motivation, body surveillance, body shame, and body dissatisfaction. In an experiment, undergraduate participants (67 women and 83 men) received an objectifying gaze during an interaction with a trained confederate of the other sex. As hypothesized, the objectifying gaze caused decrements in women’s math performance but not men’s. Interestingly, the objec…
My Eyes Are Up Here
Confronting Sexism
The Ripple Effects of Stranger Harassment on Objectification of Self and Others
Despite the frequency and negative consequences of stranger harassment, only a scant number of studies have explicitly examined stranger harassment and its consequences through the lens of objectification theory. The current study introduced and tested a mediation model in which women’s experiences of stranger harassment may lead to self-objectification, which in turn may lead to objectification of other people. To examine this model, undergradua…
Objectification in Heterosexual Romantic Relationships
Confronting Sexism as Persuasion
We applied the message‐learning theory of persuasion to examine perceptions of leaders who confront sexism. Participants (N = 283) read vignettes that varied the confrontation message (i.e., directness), source (i.e., confronter gender), and context (i.e., public vs. private). As hypothesized, female (vs. male) participants evaluated confronters more positively and female (vs. male) leaders were evaluated less favorably when they confronted publi…
Seeing women as objects
Objectification theory suggests that the bodies of women are sometimes reduced to their sexual body parts. As well, an extensive literature in cognitive psychology suggests that global processing underlies person recognition, whereas local processing underlies object recognition. Integrating these literatures, we introduced and tested the sexual body part recognition bias hypothesis that women's (versus men's) bodies would be reduced to their sex…
Violence Against Women Through the Lens of Objectification Theory
The purpose of this research was to examine the effects of violence on body image variables for college women. Undergraduate women participated in an online study assessing sexual violence (SV), intimate partner violence (IPV), self-objectification, body surveillance, and body shame experiences. Findings suggest that both SV and IPV contribute to women's body shame. In addition, the associations between IPV and body shame appear to be explained t…
From Sex Objects to Human Beings
Recent studies have shown that sexualized female bodies are objectified at a cognitive level. Research using the body-inversion recognition task, a robust indicator of configural (vs. analytic processing) within cognitive psychology, shows that for sexualized female bodies, people recognize upright and inverted bodies similarly rather than recognizing upright bodies better than inverted bodies (i.e., an inversion effect). This finding suggests th…
The Sexual Objectification and Alcohol Use Link
The Effect of Patronizing Behavior and Control on Men and Women’s Performance in Stereotypically Masculine Domains
Perceived Humanization by Intimate Partners during Pregnancy Is Associated with fewer Depressive Symptoms, Less Body Dissatisfaction, and Greater Sexual Satisfaction through Reduced Self-Objectificati…
Evidence for an Association between Men’s Spontaneous Objectifying Gazing Behavior and their Endorsement of Objectifying Attitudes toward Women
Body Surveillance and Body Shame in College Men
Abortion Decisions as Humanizing Acts
Women-centered anti-abortion rhetoric, grounded in ostensibly positive beliefs that pregnant people are precious objects who must be protected from having abortions, has proliferated anti-abortion activism and legislation. However, abortion stigma, marked by negative perceptions of people who terminate pregnancies, is the most widely used theoretical tool for understanding the social and psychological implications of abortion. In this article, we…
When do people “check out” male bodies? Appearance-focus increases the objectifying gaze toward men
Objectification studies have mostly focused on why and how women are objectified, but relatively little is known about what drives the objectification of men. This paper aims to examine the objectifying gaze toward men, which is operationalized in the present paper as decreased focus on men's faces and increased focus on men's body parts (arms, chest and stomach). We considered the role of appearance (vs. personality) focus and ideal body shape o…
Reactions to the implicit association test as an educational tool
Does tipping facilitate sexual objectification? The effect of tips on sexual harassment of bar and restaurant servers
Purpose In many countries, service workers' (e.g. restaurant staff, bartenders) income depends highly on tips. Such workers are often female and targeted by sexual harassment. The purpose of this paper was to investigate whether the mode of compensation (tips vs. no tips) could play a causal role in the perceived legitimacy of sexual harassment. Design/methodology/approach In an experimental study (N = 161), the authors manipulated the source of …
Beauty Is in the Eye of the Beer Holder
Sit Big to Eat Big
Body image concern has long been linked with unhealthy restrained eating patterns among women, yet scant research has examined factors to disrupt this process. At the same time, feminine stereotypes prescribe that women should be small, restrict their movements, speak softly, and limit their food intake (e.g., through dieting). Here, we examined whether women’s postural constriction or expansion moderated the relation between body shape concern a…
Just Think About It
The effects of prejudice level and social influence strategy on powerful people's responding to racial out‐group members
This research tested the hypothesis that the responding of high, but not low, prejudice White Americans would vary as a function of manipulations of powerful people's attention to subordinate strengths that facilitate goal strivings versus weaknesses that block goals. To examine this possibility, White participants were assigned to leader roles and an interaction with a low power Black ‘employee’ was staged. Consistent with predictions, findings …
Associations Between Women’s and Men’s Conformity to Gender Norms and Bystander Intervention to Disrupt Sexual Assault
An Integrated Conceptual Framework Linking Attachment Insecurity to Increased Risk for Both Enacting and Experiencing Objectification
Sexual objectification (i.e., reducing a person to their appearance, body, or sex appeal and functions) is a significant risk factor for negative health outcomes. In the present investigation, we examined multiple manifestations of objectification (i.e., objectification of others, objectification of self, and objectification by others) in an interpersonal context. We merged objectification theory with attachment theory, one of the most prominent …
Power and the Creation of Patronizing Environments
This work tested the following hypothesis: When powerful men stereotype their female subordinates in masculine domains, they behave in patronizing ways that affect the performance of their subordinates. Experiment 1 examined the stereotyping tendencies and patronizing behaviors of the powerful. Findings revealed that powerful men who stereotyped their female subordinates (i.e., those who were weakness focused) gave female subordinates few valued …
The effects of prejudice level and social influence strategy on powerful people's responding to racial out‐group members
This research tested the hypothesis that the responding of high, but not low, prejudice White Americans would vary as a function of manipulations of powerful people's attention to subordinate strengths that facilitate goal strivings versus weaknesses that block goals. To examine this possibility, White participants were assigned to leader roles and an interaction with a low power Black ‘employee’ was staged. Consistent with predictions, findings …
Confronting Sexism
When What You See Is What You Get
This research examined the effects of the objectifying gaze on math performance, interaction motivation, body surveillance, body shame, and body dissatisfaction. In an experiment, undergraduate participants (67 women and 83 men) received an objectifying gaze during an interaction with a trained confederate of the other sex. As hypothesized, the objectifying gaze caused decrements in women’s math performance but not men’s. Interestingly, the objec…
Integrating Sexual Objectification With Object Versus Person Recognition
Objectification refers to treating people as objects rather than persons. When people are sexually objectified, they are reduced to their sexualized bodies or body parts, available for satisfying the desires of others. At the same time, research on object and person recognition suggests that people are perceived configurally, whereas objects are perceived analytically. For example, the inversion effect (i.e, inverted stimuli are more difficult to…
Just Think About It
The Effect of Patronizing Behavior and Control on Men and Women’s Performance in Stereotypically Masculine Domains
Seeing women as objects
Objectification theory suggests that the bodies of women are sometimes reduced to their sexual body parts. As well, an extensive literature in cognitive psychology suggests that global processing underlies person recognition, whereas local processing underlies object recognition. Integrating these literatures, we introduced and tested the sexual body part recognition bias hypothesis that women's (versus men's) bodies would be reduced to their sex…
Reactions to the implicit association test as an educational tool
Sit Big to Eat Big
Body image concern has long been linked with unhealthy restrained eating patterns among women, yet scant research has examined factors to disrupt this process. At the same time, feminine stereotypes prescribe that women should be small, restrict their movements, speak softly, and limit their food intake (e.g., through dieting). Here, we examined whether women’s postural constriction or expansion moderated the relation between body shape concern a…
The Ripple Effects of Stranger Harassment on Objectification of Self and Others
Despite the frequency and negative consequences of stranger harassment, only a scant number of studies have explicitly examined stranger harassment and its consequences through the lens of objectification theory. The current study introduced and tested a mediation model in which women’s experiences of stranger harassment may lead to self-objectification, which in turn may lead to objectification of other people. To examine this model, undergradua…
Body Surveillance and Body Shame in College Men
My Eyes Are Up Here
Eye of the beholder
Social Analytic Jurisprudence instructs researchers to study the reciprocal relations between law and peoples’ lives by developing empirical descriptions of legal assumptions about human behavior. The present work introduced a new experimental paradigm to test some of those assumptions by studying the impact of sexual objectification in a simulated job interview on performance, sexual harassment judgments, and emotions for women who experienced (…
Confronting Sexism as Persuasion
We applied the message‐learning theory of persuasion to examine perceptions of leaders who confront sexism. Participants (N = 283) read vignettes that varied the confrontation message (i.e., directness), source (i.e., confronter gender), and context (i.e., public vs. private). As hypothesized, female (vs. male) participants evaluated confronters more positively and female (vs. male) leaders were evaluated less favorably when they confronted publi…
Dehumanization of older people
This research examined how people judge hostile work environments in which members of a work setting derogate other workers because they are older and presumed to be incompetent based on a psycholegal model incorporating negative affect and dehumanization (Wiener, Gervais, Brnjic, & Nuss, 2014). Specifically, we conducted a study in which a national sample of community participants read a scenario in which an interviewer did or did not derogate a…
Violence Against Women Through the Lens of Objectification Theory
The purpose of this research was to examine the effects of violence on body image variables for college women. Undergraduate women participated in an online study assessing sexual violence (SV), intimate partner violence (IPV), self-objectification, body surveillance, and body shame experiences. Findings suggest that both SV and IPV contribute to women's body shame. In addition, the associations between IPV and body shame appear to be explained t…
From Sex Objects to Human Beings
Recent studies have shown that sexualized female bodies are objectified at a cognitive level. Research using the body-inversion recognition task, a robust indicator of configural (vs. analytic processing) within cognitive psychology, shows that for sexualized female bodies, people recognize upright and inverted bodies similarly rather than recognizing upright bodies better than inverted bodies (i.e., an inversion effect). This finding suggests th…
Objectification theory
When do people “check out” male bodies? Appearance-focus increases the objectifying gaze toward men
Objectification studies have mostly focused on why and how women are objectified, but relatively little is known about what drives the objectification of men. This paper aims to examine the objectifying gaze toward men, which is operationalized in the present paper as decreased focus on men's faces and increased focus on men's body parts (arms, chest and stomach). We considered the role of appearance (vs. personality) focus and ideal body shape o…
The Femininity–Money Incongruity Hypothesis
Women are often stereotyped as poorly equipped to deal with money matters, compared to men, yet very little research has examined the underpinnings and consequences of such gender stereotypes. Drawing on descriptive and prescriptive elements of women’s social roles, we empirically examined the gendered nature of money stereotypes. Specifically in the current work, we introduced and investigated the femininity–money incongruity hypothesis, which s…
Beauty Is in the Eye of the Beer Holder
Sexual objectification
In this article, the authors focus on the linkages between objectification and current societal manifestations of sexual violence toward women to make the case that everyday instances of objectification can provide the foundation for more extreme forms of violence. First, they formally introduce the notion of objectification and explain its origins and its consequences in those who perpetrate and those who experience it. Next, they use objectific…
The Neural Correlates of Cognitive Objectification
At an early stage of visual processing, human faces and bodies are typically associated with larger N170s when presented in an inverted (vs. upright) position, indexing the involvement of configural processing. We challenged this view and hypothesized that sexualized bodies would not be sensitive to inversion, thereby suggesting that they would be processed similarly to objects. Participants saw sexualized male and female bodies, nonsexualized ma…
Objectifying objectification
Objectification occurs when people are seen and treated similarly to things. Research on this topic has been dominated by an interest in the content of impressions people form of targets, but much less is known about the processes involved in the objectification of others. To fill this gap, this paper reviews a recent line of research that investigates the cognitive objectification of others (i.e., the processes – early visual processing, attenti…
Psychology (46 obras) · Social Psychology (41 obras) · Objectification (30 obras) · Social Psychology (30 obras) · Developmental psychology (26 obras) · Sociology (16 obras) · Eating Disorders and Behaviors (14 obras) · Evolutionary Psychology and Human Behavior (13 obras) · Clinical Psychology (12 obras) · Social and Intergroup Psychology (12 obras)