The psychology of objectification
November 13, 2013 6:34 AM   Subscribe

What goes on in our minds when we see someone naked? A 2011 study [PDF] led by Kurt Gray revealed a curious fact about how people perceive other people when they take their clothes off: What emerged was that we see the capacity for feelings, whether pleasure or pain or happiness or anger, as distinct from the capacity for intellectual thought and planning. Namely, that we treat those we objectify as less intelligent, yet simultaneously we endow them with a greater ability to feel things.
posted by Cash4Lead (49 comments total) 30 users marked this as a favorite


 
HEY! A NAKED PERSON! ... normally.
posted by GallonOfAlan at 6:50 AM on November 13, 2013 [3 favorites]


I guess that fits with the common and very old stereotype that women are emotional, while men are rational.
President William Howard Taft said that he opposed suffrage because women were too emotional. "On the whole," he wrote, "it is fair to say that the immediate enfranchisement of women will increase the proportion of the hysterical element of the electorate."

posted by Jacob Knitig at 6:57 AM on November 13, 2013


"it is fair to say that the immediate enfranchisement of women will increase the proportion of the hysterical element of the electorate."

It's not that he was wrong - the irony is that the Tea Party is largely comprised of men.
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 7:04 AM on November 13, 2013 [16 favorites]


So, to improve gender equality we must depict naked men and women with equal frequency in the media.
posted by TwelveTwo at 7:12 AM on November 13, 2013 [6 favorites]


This is a bit complicated, but I think there is perhaps too ready an identification going on here between this newly-reported effect and objectification. I should have said objectification does not occur simply through seeing someone naked, it occurs only with certain kinds of contextualised nakedness (presumably porn contexts etc). So this attribution of less intellect but more feeling need not be related to objectification in that sense.
posted by Segundus at 7:19 AM on November 13, 2013 [5 favorites]


I guess that fits with the common and very old stereotype that women are emotional, while men are rational.

Only if you presume that women are more naked. That's probably true for some domains, eg the internet.
posted by Segundus at 7:22 AM on November 13, 2013 [1 favorite]


Is there any data on how emotional/intellectual people feel when they are naked?
posted by GenjiandProust at 7:25 AM on November 13, 2013 [3 favorites]


Objectification has never been a very good concept--that is, it doesn't seem to capture a real phenomenon. If you start your inquiries with defective concepts, you're task becomes doubly difficult. Kant's distinction between seeing people as ends as opposed to seeing them as mere means is much better.

The conclusion of this piece (based on, it seems, one or a small number of studies) is best, it seems, expressed like so: people do not, in fact, "objectify" the people they see naked (to the extent that we can make sense of "objectification"). Rather, they allegedly have some tendency to attribute mental properties to them in different proportions.

Weirdly, however, the author's stated conclusion is not the warranted one--no "objectification" found. But, rather, to paraphrase: "objectification" does not involve seeing people as objects.

There's no reason to cling to a defective concept and defective terminology in this way.

Politics so blinds people when these issues come up that I'd never believe any of this stuff on the basis of such paltry evidence. But, supposing that we find, years from now, that all this holds up, we'd really want to know whether any of these effects get transferred over to long-term thinking. It really would be no surprise at all that we tend to think of people differently, at least in the moment, when we see them in different contexts. We're normally struck by someone's intellectual characteristics when we see them, say, giving a lecture, and by their more physical/sensual characteristics when we see them in a sexual situation. I'm not sure that's bad, though interesting questions would be raised if the effects on our thinking were long-term.

Incidentally, if these effects are real, my prediction would be that the latter characteristics are emphasized not just when we see erotic pictures, but also when we have sex with someone. So if any of this is supposed to be an indictment, it will cut against actually seeing people naked during sex as well as against seeing them naked in pictures (e.g. in erotica).

Finally, it might be worth nothing that many feminists (and some others) have held that sensitivity is at least as important as, say, more analytic thought, and that it is males who have, historically, tried to deny the importance of emotions and our embodiment. So it's not clear that any of the things alleged in the article would count as bad things according to such views.

Overall, I do find such questions interesting, but such discussions seem typically to stretch for pre-determined conclusions, and that makes me wary.
posted by Fists O'Fury at 7:25 AM on November 13, 2013 [24 favorites]



So, to improve gender equality we must depict naked men and women with equal frequency in the media.


Ah, the Spartacus method to gender equality via frequent and copious nudity.
posted by The Whelk at 7:25 AM on November 13, 2013 [9 favorites]


It would be interesting to see a study in which they used clothed and naked people from a different point on the spectrum of conventional beauty (i.e. not porn stars). I wonder whether the perceptions of experience vs. agency would be change if the images were of people with lumps, bumps, wrinkles, sags etc.

In any scenario though, I'd imagine we would all attribute greater perceptions of experience to naked individuals because nakedness, for any gender, is so closely associated with vulnerability.
posted by Kabanos at 7:28 AM on November 13, 2013 [3 favorites]


I'M Spartacus!
posted by mikelieman at 7:36 AM on November 13, 2013


(takes off pants)

No, I am Spartacus!
posted by Etrigan at 7:41 AM on November 13, 2013 [16 favorites]


It would be interesting to see a study in which they used clothed and naked people from a different point on the spectrum of conventional beauty (i.e. not porn stars). I wonder whether the perceptions of experience vs. agency would be change if the images were of people with lumps, bumps, wrinkles, sags etc.

Yeah; my guess is the results would be very different. I think there's a sort of magnification-of-biases thing going on. When someone sees a porn star naked, whatever they tend to think about porn stars -- unintelligent, perhaps -- comes to the fore; my suspicion is that if someone sees someone older than themselves naked, some of their underlying assumptions about older people will be revealed. So the issue might not be nakedness = less intellectual, but that nakedness in a particular context or a particular type of person, when viewed naked, reveals an underlying bias on the part of the viewer.
posted by Kadin2048 at 7:42 AM on November 13, 2013 [2 favorites]


I'd be willing to wager that their findings on that point are correct as written--that the context of sex is not necessary to create this effect. Isn't a big part of civilization itself to see nudity as improper if not shameful? Isn't it the default state of animals? Wouldn't we, then, see a naked person in any context as more like a beast--and since we are acutely aware of the necessity of clothing and the social behavior surrounding its absence, wouldn't we see them as more vulnerable, and therefore more feeling?

Fantastic article, Cash4Lead.
posted by heatvision at 7:49 AM on November 13, 2013 [5 favorites]


I'm not sure how to interpret the conclusions here, but I think people are feeling creatures first and thinking creatures second. Seems reasonable that nudity would remind us of this primal aspect of being.
posted by wobh at 7:49 AM on November 13, 2013 [4 favorites]


I'm Spartacus, and so's my wife!
posted by notsnot at 8:04 AM on November 13, 2013 [2 favorites]


Yeah, I identified yer wife as Spartacus last night ifyouknowhwatImean.
posted by Now there are two. There are two _______. at 8:08 AM on November 13, 2013 [1 favorite]


Also of interest: Face-ism and/or Facial Prominence.
posted by Young Kullervo at 8:09 AM on November 13, 2013


I think if we're looking for a cup to hold all this water, the concept of "animal-ness" is better than sex or man/woman. To be clothed is to be civilized. In dressing we make the only things you can really see about us our hands and our faces, the tools of manipulation and interpretation. To be embodied is to be vulnerable, subject to external forces which can harm us --- heat and cold, wind and water, the thorn in the paw and the grit in the eye. All clothing is armor; it protects us from the world and allows us to stand apart from it. Our first shelter. In many ways the idea that the less clothing someone has on may make them more sensitive, more capable of feeling, more ruled by sensation and emotion, is simply literal: a naked stroll on a brisk fall day and you'd be able to pattern the kiss of the breeze in the field of goosebumps it left on your flesh, be perhaps a little less able to focus on a discussion of Kant until you managed to hustle yourself to someplace with a fire you could sit in front of.
posted by Diablevert at 8:11 AM on November 13, 2013 [21 favorites]


I think people are feeling creatures first and thinking creatures second.

Thinking and feeling are inseparable. There's been some interesting research (reference escapes me right now) showing that people fail to learn in reasoning tasks (thinking) when their "reward system" (feeling) is disrupted. That is, feeling gives us a reason to think. On the flip side, there's research showing that one can cause people to reattribute emotions by causing them to think about them differently. Thought is necessary to interpret feelings.

That we think of them as separate is a mistake.
posted by Philosopher Dirtbike at 8:11 AM on November 13, 2013 [14 favorites]


Objectification has never been a very good concept--that is, it doesn't seem to capture a real phenomenon...The conclusion of this piece (based on, it seems, one or a small number of studies) is best, it seems, expressed like so: people do not, in fact, "objectify" the people they see naked (to the extent that we can make sense of "objectification").

That is a very subjective view of objectification. The concept of objectification is not primarily about what people are thinking when they look at other people, it's about whether they treat those people as persons or as objects.
posted by straight at 8:15 AM on November 13, 2013 [1 favorite]


Objectification has never been a very good concept--that is, it doesn't seem to capture a real phenomenon.

Objectification is a name for an phenomenon that is actually observed in Western culture. Women are literally depicted and treated as objects without agency. I don't see how you could say that it isn't a "real" phenomenon. We could argue about the underlying cause of the objectification, but given that it can be directly observed, it seems very "real" to me.
posted by Philosopher Dirtbike at 8:22 AM on November 13, 2013 [8 favorites]


"What goes on in our minds when we see someone naked? The more we see of a person's body the less intelligent they seem"

Behold! The most intelligent person in the world!
posted by Dodecadermaldenticles at 8:29 AM on November 13, 2013 [4 favorites]


The more we see of a person's body the less intelligent they seem

Is that why we put on a thinking cap?
posted by Kabanos at 8:58 AM on November 13, 2013


People are happy and slightly less rational when they see their preferred gender naked. Why do we need studies that tell us this?
posted by Melismata at 9:01 AM on November 13, 2013 [1 favorite]


Oh, and article has That Formatting. Argh.
posted by Melismata at 9:01 AM on November 13, 2013


Ancient Greece fetishized the nude male body and produced innumerable images of nameless,"objectified" naked young men. Ancient Greece was also one of the most radically sexist and misogynistic cultures imaginable, in which women were--with a few exceptions--regarded as radically unintellectual beings. At the very least, those facts suggest that one needs to be cautious in making any overly sweeping claims about the connections between wider social status and "objectified" representation.
posted by yoink at 9:03 AM on November 13, 2013 [6 favorites]


Ancient Greece also had slavery, which is an even worse form of objectification. A patriarchal culture doesn't mean that all men are treated as persons and all women are treated as objects.

So yes, when men or women were objectified in Ancient Greece, that was a bad thing. And it's a bad thing now as well. The fact that men are sometimes treated as objects rather than persons doesn't mitigate the harm done by objectifying women. And if a particular group of people (e.g. women) are objectified a lot more often than other people, that's a cause for particular concern.
posted by straight at 9:28 AM on November 13, 2013 [1 favorite]


This is really interesting, but "people are naive platonic dualists" seems like a wildly speculative extrapolation of the "porn book" data. Is the article misstating the research and its claims, or is the finding truly this extraordinary and this shallowly supported?
posted by batfish at 9:36 AM on November 13, 2013 [1 favorite]


The answer to the question "is this article misstating the research and its claims?" is almost always yes.
posted by Jon Mitchell at 9:41 AM on November 13, 2013


the irony is that the Tea Party is largely comprised of men.

Says you
posted by IndigoJones at 9:47 AM on November 13, 2013 [2 favorites]


Objectification is a name for an phenomenon that is actually observed in Western culture. Women are literally depicted and treated as objects without agency.

No, "objectification" is a theoretical term based on observations and hypotheses about how people view and treat other people, notably how some men allegedly view and treat some women. It's a highly theoretical term, based on a theory of how to make sense of the relevant phenomena. In fact, what the study in question seems to show, is that it's a bad theory and a bad term. Even ordinary observation actually shows that--almost no one ever literally views another person as an object (in the ordinary sense of object). Though I'm skeptical of the study in question, its conclusion at least seems closer to the mark: people sometimes view each other as being more animalistic (in the ordinary sense) and less intellectual. Almost no one ever literally views another person in the way that they view a rock or a table. "Objectification" has always had an element of the rhetorical in it--it (intentionally, it seems to me) has an element of exaggeration in it.

But anyway, however the debate about the concept and the term shakes out--and, of course, I could be totally wrong about most of that--it's not merely an innocuous and unquestionable observational term, like, say, 'red.' It's a term that presupposes a bunch of (controversial) theory. Personally, though I am wary of anti-erotica warriors, left and right, I'm more that willing to concede that there's something unsavory about a lot of the stuff...but it simply isn't obvious and unquestionable that "objectification" is an accurate description of what's afoot there.
posted by Fists O'Fury at 10:01 AM on November 13, 2013 [9 favorites]


I think these stereotypes are quite accurate, at least in the case of me. I really am less likely to be thinking rationally when naked around another person, and more likely to be feeling strong emotions.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 10:37 AM on November 13, 2013 [1 favorite]


Ancient Greece also had slavery, which is an even worse form of objectification.

Indeed, but where your argument breaks down is in its implication that the nude male forms idealized and widely consumed in Ancient Greek culture were representations of male slaves. They were not, by and large. The point is that the Greek example shows that it is perfectly possible to "objectify" bodies without any concomitant broader social devaluation of the intellectual and spiritual qualities of the gender those bodies belong to.

I am not arguing that we do not live in a sexist society or that sexism does not radically structure the way images of naked women are produced and consumed in our society; I'm arguing that the simplistic form of the "objectification" argument is unhelpful and demonstrably incorrect. In other words, the claim that "objectification" is inherently oppressive and can only be a symptom of a structural social power imbalance is simply false. Looking at a picture of a naked person and thinking "gosh, what a beautiful, sexy body" without simultaneously thinking "I bet that person is really good at trigonometry and has very interesting things to say about the Great Schism of 1054" is not, in other words, an act that is inherently tied to structural inequalities between the class of people to which the observer belongs and the class of people to which the observed person belongs.
posted by yoink at 10:58 AM on November 13, 2013 [1 favorite]


All I can think of reading this thread is Marge Simpson's naked painting of Mr. Burns.
posted by Space Coyote at 11:08 AM on November 13, 2013 [1 favorite]


"Indeed, but where your argument breaks down is in its implication that the nude male forms idealized and widely consumed in Ancient Greek culture were representations of male slaves. They were not, by and large. The point is that the Greek example shows that it is perfectly possible to "objectify" bodies without any concomitant broader social devaluation of the intellectual and spiritual qualities of the gender those bodies belong to. "

Greek art is an interesting point on this, but you're giving it a fairly shallow reading here.

The "objects" of Greek nude art were idealized teen boys, who were very much treated as sexual objects to be molded by older men in quasi-mentoring sexual relationships. They were also valued on different axes than what we're talking about here. They were supposed to be innocent and pure, divorced from the animal nature of older men — they were specifically hairless from the neck down, and their genitals were minimized, as large genitals were seen as bestial and barbaric.

So, no, there was a devaluation of intellectual prowess and emphasis of the young boys as spiritual beings undebased by physical urges.

And it's also important to recognize that the existent statuary that we have isn't the sum of Greek nude art, nor is it (as it is currently viewed) a very good indicator of how Greeks perceived those statues.

I'd also point out that trying to associate contemporary mores and cultures with Ancient Greeks is often fairly misleading, e.g. how Athenian democracy conceived "rights" is fairly alien to how we think about them.
posted by klangklangston at 11:34 AM on November 13, 2013


The Tea Party is definitely funded by men.

And I've been objectified while wearing winter clothes at dusk during a light snow - practically invisible, soundless, and without a scent but objectified just the same.
posted by Lesser Shrew at 11:44 AM on November 13, 2013


Almost no one ever literally views another person in the way that they view a rock or a table.

If you think that's what people mean when they say "objectification," we really can't have a conversation. You seriously think that users of the term "objectification" think that people *literally* view other people as inanimate? Really?
posted by Philosopher Dirtbike at 12:18 PM on November 13, 2013


So, to improve gender equality we must depict naked men and women with equal frequency in the media.

I actually kind of agree with this. Whenever I feel myself getting shrewish about nudity I realize that it isn't nudity I hate, I hate the expectation that women will be used as naked ornamentation everywhere while men will be carefully guarded from this loss of dignity. Turns out I LOVE nudity.

If you think that's what people mean when they say "objectification," we really can't have a conversation. You seriously think that users of the term "objectification" think that people *literally* view other people as inanimate? Really?

Sometimes words are not literal reflections of their etymology...

Objectification has never been a very good concept--that is, it doesn't seem to capture a real phenomenon. If you start your inquiries with defective concepts, you're task becomes doubly difficult. Kant's distinction between seeing people as ends as opposed to seeing them as mere means is much better.

lol. This is somewhat what I think of when the term "objectification" is used, without any unnecessary, nonempirical baggage from Kant.
posted by stoneandstar at 12:22 PM on November 13, 2013


The experimenters talk about "people" but, as usual, the subjects were American college students. This strikes me as a domain which would vary wildly by culture, including historical culture.
posted by zompist at 12:45 PM on November 13, 2013 [1 favorite]


I always understood the "object" in "objectification" as the grammatical construct. Subjects act on objects; objects don't act unless they become subjects. An objectified person is denied agency.

Also, the concern over objectification (or whatever you want to call the phenomenon we're looking at) does not primarily belong to "anti-erotica warriors." C'mon, now.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 12:46 PM on November 13, 2013 [2 favorites]


It would be helpful if people arguing about "objectification" would at least acknowledge the definition laid out in TFA:
Objectification has been defined in feminist literature to include several elements, including the denial of autonomy and the denial of subjectivity — we see the person as lacking self-determination and feelings. He or she becomes, in the viewer’s mind, an object, a ‘piece of meat’, devoid of any internal life.
Along with their proposed nomenclature, which I found illustrative:
In most cases, thinking of a person as a body does not lead to objectification in a literal sense, in which the person becomes an object. Rather, he’s dehumanised — he becomes a sensitive beast.
I agree with Diablevert -- to be naked is to be stripped of the trappings of civilization, everything that was produced by thought and reason, and what's left can be described as the "human animal."

In addition, clothing is for most people an expression of self-conception, reflecting their philosophy and choices. To see someone naked is to see them with a primary visual indicator of self-determination removed; it doesn't seem a stretch for this to be associated with a lack of agency.
posted by bjrubble at 1:20 PM on November 13, 2013 [4 favorites]


So, to improve gender equality we must depict naked men and women with equal frequency in the media.

I tried that but they blurred it out on the news.
posted by turbid dahlia at 2:34 PM on November 13, 2013


Objectification has been defined in feminist literature to include several elements, including the denial of autonomy and the denial of subjectivity — we see the person as lacking self-determination and feelings. He or she becomes, in the viewer’s mind, an object, a ‘piece of meat’, devoid of any internal life.

Maybe they need to cite some of that feminist literature, because I always understood objectification to be more about what people are doing than what they are thinking. It's not about some psychological defect where you literally don't believe people have and deserve agency and dignity, it's when you act as if you don't care whether people have and deserve agency and dignity.
posted by straight at 4:24 PM on November 13, 2013 [3 favorites]


The point is that the Greek example shows that it is perfectly possible to "objectify" bodies without any concomitant broader social devaluation of the intellectual and spiritual qualities of the gender those bodies belong to.

But my point was that the harm of objectification is not (primarily) the devaluation of a gender, but the devaluation of the specific people who are being objectified. That a society is patriarchal does not mean that men and boys can't be harmed by being objectified.

If a particular group (e.g. women) is objectified more than others such that the entire group is devalued, that's also bad, but that kind of societal effect is not the only reason or even the main reason that it's bad to treat people like objects rather than persons.
posted by straight at 4:31 PM on November 13, 2013


If you think that's what people mean when they say "objectification," we really can't have a conversation. You seriously think that users of the term "objectification" think that people *literally* view other people as inanimate? Really?

Quoting you:

Women are literally depicted and treated as objects without agency.


I did try to make sense of some of the literature concerning "objectification" for awhile, but it seemed to me to be more rhetorical and political, and I came to think that there wasn't much there there... Needless to say, I could be wrong.
posted by Fists O'Fury at 4:42 PM on November 13, 2013 [1 favorite]


klangklangston: "[Greek art's nude males'] genitals were minimized, as large genitals were seen as bestial and barbaric. "

I've heard this all my life, which makes me doubt it. Does anyone know the basis for this claim?
posted by IAmBroom at 1:10 PM on November 14, 2013


Philosopher Dirtbike: "If you think that's what people mean when they say "objectification," we really can't have a conversation. You seriously think that users of the term "objectification" think that people *literally* view other people as inanimate? Really?"

"You don't understand my terminology so you aren't worth talking to." Great.
posted by IAmBroom at 1:12 PM on November 14, 2013


Maybe there was a tiny bit of value in their Eureka discovery that a naked person posed sexually would be perceived as having lower intellectual "competence".

Just imagine a better version of this article without all the author's drumbeat fear of sexualization, and their research of porn stars.

I wanted more insight on whether (and why) it's true that smart people are perceived as less sensitive, empathetic, or "feeling". That would be a much simpler experiment, where we are shown a picture of a person, told how competent they are, and then asked to gauge their capacity for "feeling" of some sort.

And how about clothed competent bodies (elite athletes, for example, or excellent dancers), and we're asked to gauge their capacity for intellectual "competence".

There is more and better work to be done than what was done here.
posted by surplus at 4:51 AM on November 15, 2013 [1 favorite]


« Older Prosperous Suzhou   |   Django Jesus Telekinesis Bird Wow Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments