Abstract (eng)
This paper investigates the relationship between self-objectification and the sexual objectification of others among early adolescents and the potentially mediating effect of empathy on this relationship. So far, existing results only support a positive connection between self-objectification and empathy for adults. Moreover, the literature mainly documents a causal effect of sexual objectification on self-objectification. In this paper, the focus is on the reverse causality and whether there is a protective element of empathy concerning the objectification of others via reduced self-objectification. Through an online survey, measures for body surveillance, empathy, and sexual objectification were elicited from 103 participants aged 9 to 13. Sexual objectification was measured as differences in reported perceptions of illustrated images of sexualized and non-sexualized targets. No statistically significant relationships between empathy and self-objectification were detected, potentially due to the lack of power or the unplanned remote nature of the survey as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, three significant results have been uncovered: (i) lower empathy among boy participants compared to girl participants; (ii) higher objectification of sexualized targets when the participants had previously been exposed to a non-sexualized target; and (iii) a stronger same gender objectification in both boy and girl participants with boys overall sexually objectifying others more than girls. Additional research in controlled environments and with a larger number of participants might provide support for the hypotheses laid out in this paper.