Gendered Cycles of Sexual Objectification: The Roles of Social Dominance Orientation and Perceived Social Mobility

Abstract

Despite the high prevalence of sexual objectification, the understanding of gender differences in its victimization and perpetration remains limited. We bridged victim and perpetrator perspectives, expecting that objectification victimization positively predicts perpetration, and investigated the mediating role of social dominance orientation (SDO), and gender and perceived social mobility as moderators. Participants (valid N = 530) completed measures of sexual objectification victimization, perceived social mobility, SDO, and sexual objectification perpetration. We found that sexual objectification victimization predicted its perpetration, and that this relationship was stronger among men than women. SDO partially mediated the moderation effect of gender, whereby mediation through SDO was significant among men, but not significant among women. Moreover, a three-way interaction between sexual objectification victimization, gender, and perceived social mobility predicted SDO and carried subsequent implications for sexual objectification perpetration. Despite the mediation effect through SDO not achieving significance among women, it was significantly moderated by perceived social mobility. Specifically, the indirect effect among women with high perceived social mobility was significantly different than that among women with low perceived social mobility, but not significantly different than that among men, whose results were not influenced by perceived social mobility. This study provides a more nuanced understanding of gender in sexual objectification—specifically that gender differences may be related to social power and differences in socialization. The findings offer implications for the development of theories and clinical programs for coping with objectification victimization and preventing perpetration.