关键词: 自我客体化, 认知表现, 身体与外貌监测, 性客体化

Abstract: Self-objectified women internalize an observer’s perspective as a primary view of their physical selves. This internalized perspective on self can lead to habitual body and appearance monitoring, which can increase women’s opportunities for shame and anxiety, reduce opportunities for peak motivational states, and diminish awareness of internal bodily states. Accumulations of such experience can lead further into bad consequences. Early studies have focused on the bad consequences of self-objectification on mental health. Few studies have focused on the impact of self-objectification on cognitive performance. Csikszentmihalyi proposed an idea of ”flow”— a state in which a person stretches to the limit to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile. Objectification, therefore, to be perceived as detrimental to cognitive performance, in which concentration is required and cognitive resources need to be garnered. Thus, it can be seen that objectification is an important research direction in the field of cognitive performance. In the present article, we reviewed the related studies on self-objectification and cognitive performance. First, we summarized the studies on relations of self-objectification and cognitive performance. Then, we reviewed the theoretical explanations of the effect of self-objectification on cognitive performance. Finally, future research directions were prospected. The research status of self-objectification with cognitive performance: In the manipulation of —termed the “swimsuit-sweater paradigm”, many studies have showed that, both male and female participants in the swimsuit condition experienced a state of self-objectification, and being in a state of self-objectification can have deleterious effects on math cognitive performance. Due to math test may induce a state of “stereotype threat”, it can be seen as a plausible alternative explanation for the performance decrements demonstrated in a state of self-objectification. Some other researchers used a cognitive task that has no gender stereotypes to investigate the influence of self-objectification on Cognitive performance. But the conclusions of the studies were not consistent. Some studies have demonstrated an effect of the swimsuit-sweater manipulation on performance using measures of Stroop color naming task, but some other studies using measures of Gestalt Completion Test, Non- sense Syllogisms Test, Surface Development Test have failed to demonstrate the effect of self-objectification on cognitive performance. A few researchers used less obtrusive situations to manipulation self-objectification, such as exposure participants to an objectifying environment filled with items designed to make participants appearance salient, made appearance-based compliments to the participants, took pictures of the participants, showed sexual— objectification video to the participants. In these studies, the effects of self-objectification on cognitive performance were not consistent. In summary, although there are evidences that trait self-objectification is related to the experience of “flow”, state self-objectification is related to the impairment of cognitive performance (mathematical cognitive performance, attention cognitive performance). However, some studies failed to demonstrate the damage effect of state self-objectification on cognitive performance (well-formed complement, meaningless syllogism, spatial cognition, etc.), or only when trait self-objectification interacted with state self-objectification would have damage to cognitive performance. The theoretical explanations of the effect of self-objectification on cognitive performance: First, self-objectification is theorized to result in a change in visual perspective. There were evidence showed when a person objectifying the self takes a third-person perspective, viewing the self through the eyes of the other would lead to an increase in women's self-objectification. Second, self-objectification is theorized to lead to the experience of negative self-conscious emotions, such as shame, anxiety, and depression. People with those negative self-conscious emotions have to distract cognitive resources to manage with that, and thus result in performance decrements. Finally, when women self-objectify they are thought to be actively focus their attention on monitoring their appearance or comparing their appearance to cultural standards. Those monitoring activities can cause their mental resources to be consumed, and resources used for other activities are limited. Although there are three possible theoretical explanations of the effect of self-objectification on cognitive performance, but no research has directly proved that individuals can cause cognitive impairment in that three path. The future research direction: Firstly, future research needs to enrich the manipulation of self-objectification in different ways, especially the more general and everyday situation of objectification manipulation. Secondly, future studies should examine the mechanism of self-objectification on cognitive performance through experiments. Thirdly, future studies should investigate different cognitive performances, and pay attention to cumulative effect of self-objectification on cognitive performance, and examine the performance of the same cognitive task through different measurement methods. Fourthly, future studies have to pay attention to the cumulative effect of self-objectification on cognitive performance. Early studies on objectification and cognitive performance adopt experimental manipulation methods to test the impact on cognitive performance by causing the state self-objectification of participants. However, some studies have found that trait self-objectification has an effect on cognitive performance. Thus, further research needs to examine whether self-objectification has a cumulative effect on cognitive performance.

Key words: self-objectification, cognitive performance, body and appearance monitoring, sexual objectification