Sexualized Women Seen as Objects According to Research
- 12 years ago
Research Suggests Women Seen as Objects - as part of the news series by GeoBeats.
Advertisements featuring scantily clad women are nothing new. Sex sells and society is buying. But at what cost?
Research into how men and women see the models that are posing for pictures in sexy advertisements has uncovered some disturbing results. Sexualized pictures of men were still recognized as people, while both male and female test subjects saw the pictures of sexualized women as objects.
Our minds process objects and people differently. One way of testing this mental comparison is by turning a picture upside down. Pictures of people are less likely than pictures of an object to be recognized when they are shown upside down. Scientists found that subjects recognized female underwear models even when their pictures were shown upside down, while the upside down male underwear models were not recognized as easily.
But other research suggests that the pictures of women are not necessarily seen as objects, but rather as people that are able to feel, but not think. The correlation between what is shown and how the subjects react is fascinating. Researchers found that as the levels of sexual suggestiveness in the pictures of women were increased, the perceived mental faculties of the person decreased.
Advertisements featuring scantily clad women are nothing new. Sex sells and society is buying. But at what cost?
Research into how men and women see the models that are posing for pictures in sexy advertisements has uncovered some disturbing results. Sexualized pictures of men were still recognized as people, while both male and female test subjects saw the pictures of sexualized women as objects.
Our minds process objects and people differently. One way of testing this mental comparison is by turning a picture upside down. Pictures of people are less likely than pictures of an object to be recognized when they are shown upside down. Scientists found that subjects recognized female underwear models even when their pictures were shown upside down, while the upside down male underwear models were not recognized as easily.
But other research suggests that the pictures of women are not necessarily seen as objects, but rather as people that are able to feel, but not think. The correlation between what is shown and how the subjects react is fascinating. Researchers found that as the levels of sexual suggestiveness in the pictures of women were increased, the perceived mental faculties of the person decreased.