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My Mind On My Body And My Body On My Mind: Examining The Effect Of Self-Objectification On Exercise Flow And Enjoyment For Young Women, Kimberly Embacher Martin

Doctoral Dissertations

The overwhelming prevalence of sexually objectifying media in our culture causes many women to objectify themselves (self-objectification), resulting in heightened body surveillance. This constant body surveillance involves recurrent, self-conscious cognitions that lower a woman’s ability to enter a state of flow— the feeling of complete absorption in an activity that is strongly connected to enjoyment. One context wherein the relationships between self-objectification, body surveillance, flow, and enjoyment may prove particularly important is that of exercise. Therefore, the purpose of the current study was to integrate objectification theory and flow theory in order to examine a variety of potential objectification-related inhibitors …