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THE EFFECT OF MALE PRESENCE ON FEMALE SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS, BODY IMAGE, AND MOOD
Abstract
A woman's physical attractiveness is often a determining factor in the successful development of relationships with men. Within the counseling setting, this dynamic also seems to operate as male counselors are more responsive and positive toward attractive female clients. The female has been frequently studied as a stimulus for male reaction, but little research has examined the effect of her appearance on her own feelings and behavior. This study assumed that young women are often aware of their attractiveness and seek approval for their appearance from men. As the counseling dyad is most often composed of a male counselor and a female client, it follows that the counseling process may evoke objective self-awareness of self-consciousness in clients and that young women in counseling may often be self-consciousness about their appearance. This study assessed the effects of male presence upon the objective self-awareness of college age women who had been made self-conscious about their appearance. Comparisons were made between this condition and control conditions consisting of a femae presence, an empty room, or a mirror. Because objective self-awareness often results in temporarily impaired self-esteem, mood was also assessed. Subjects were 163 white female undergraduates enrolled at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. The women were divided into high and low body image groups based on their own perceptions of their attractiveness as measured by a body image scale. Because objective self-awareness is a pleasant state for individuals who feel good about themselves, it was hypothesized high body image women are comfortable with self-focus in all conditions and, therefore, would maintain their objective self-awareness and report a positive mood. It was also hypothesized low body image women would be uncomfortable with self-focus and would try to "escape" objective self-awareness but would only be successful when in the presence of a female or an empty room. It was further predicted that these low body image women would report a relatively positive mood when they moved out of the state of objective self-awareness but a relatively negative mood when they did not. For both the objective self-awareness and mood measures, a 2 x 4 factorial design with two levels of body image and the four treatment conditions was used to analyze the data. The objective self-awareness hypotheses were not supported as all the women became objectively self-aware and did not change, regardless of body image level or treatment condition. Apparently the study conditions produced such strong self-focusing stimuli that the women could not "escape" their self-consciousness, even in an empty room. The mood hypotheses, however, were partially supported as the high body image women reported a significantly more positive mood in this state than did the low body image women. An additional focus of the study was the relationship between men's ratings of women's attractiveness and women's ratings of their own attractiveness. Women rated their own attractiveness on the Physical Attractiveness Questionnaire and photographs of these women were rated by four men to obtain the male rating. Results suggested that the high body image women could predict the males' ratings of them significantly more accurately than could the low body image women. In addition, the mean ratings of the males for the high and low body image groups did not differ suggesting that the differences in the way women see themselves are different differences than those perceived by men. Significantly more than half of the women in both groups reported a preference for a female counselor when the presenting problem involved physical attractiveness. The implications of this research to the practice of psychotherapy with women were discussed and recommendations for further research provided.
Subject Area
Psychology
Recommended Citation
JEAN, PAULA J, "THE EFFECT OF MALE PRESENCE ON FEMALE SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS, BODY IMAGE, AND MOOD" (1981). ETD collection for University of Nebraska-Lincoln. AAI8122595.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI8122595