Social pressures to look good and be sexy might be crushing college-aged men’s hopes of finding a significant other.
A recent study completed by several University of Nebraska-Lincoln psychology faculty members found young men are beginning to show signs of objectification and body shame.
“You see objectified images of women everywhere,” said Sarah Gervais, a professor of psychology. “But, the truth is, if you walk through the grocery store lines, you’re going to see that there are body builders on magazines and a lot of really attractive men there as well. That has to be having some sort of impact on men, too.”
Brian Cole, a psychology graduate student, Meghan Davidson, assistant professor of educational psychology and Sarah Gervais, assistant professor of psychology collaborated on the project.
The study, “Body Surveillance and Body Shame in College Men: Are Men Who Self-Objectify Less Hopeful?” was published in the April edition of the research journal “Sex Roles.”
The team recruited 227 UNL students, of which the majority were white and heterosexual, and asked them to complete a survey about their appearance and how they felt about their ability to maintain and pursue relationships.
Simply put, men who don’t have chiseled abs and toned arms are more likely to feel body shame, which damages their hope to create and sustain relationships.
“Hope can play a major role in improving outcomes,” Cole said. “It is not only focused on the hope that things can be better, but that the individual can do something to make it better.”
Cole said the relationship issues had the largest impact on romantic relationships, but social relationships were affected as well.
He said the study was inspired by older scholarship looking at the objectification of women, and by his previous work, looking at hope theory.
While women have suffered the effects of objectification through various forms of media, men are beginning to deal with similar images. The societal definition of masculinity has shifted to focus on male body image.
“I think the stereotypes of the past that men don’t care about their appearance or that men are judged only by what they can accomplish are even less true than they used to be,” said Jan Deeds, director of the UNL Women’s Center. “Ten years ago media images showed a wider range of what was considered an attractive man, but now all men are supposed to have Ryan Gosling’s abs.”
As part of the Women’s Center, Deeds organizes several workshops that discuss how objectification affects relationships. In the “Reconstructing Barbie and Ken,” workshop, she discusses the importance of non-physical attributes in attraction.
“When we do workshops about relationships both men and women make lists of what they want in a romantic partner, and the top items are always someone they can trust, who makes them laugh, who treats them with respect and who supports their goals,” Deeds said.
The researchers plan on expanding the study by looking at a broader spectrum of men. They said they believe similar findings will come from gay men, but not in older men. Cole said he would like to do more tests in an actual lab to obtain more data on body shame “in the moment.”
Cole said he hopes men will start having conversations about body image but he speculated that it would be difficult saying “men are taught to restrict their emotions when it comes to shame.”
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