The Self-Objectification Trap: When Women Become Billboards, Empathy Takes a Hit
Friday, September 12, 2025.
A fresh slice of bad news, courtesy of Psychology of Women Quarterly: women who spend more time turning themselves into walking billboards—self-objectifying, in the polite academic term—tend to have lower empathy.
Not only the soft kind (emotional warmth), but the cognitive kind too (the ability to imagine someone else’s point of view).
Apparently, it’s a challenge to see other people’s humanity when you’re busy policing your own thighs.
Researchers Gian Antonio Di Bernardo and colleagues studied hundreds of Italian women and kept finding the same pattern: the more women self-objectified, the more likely they were to self-dehumanize.
Yes, you heard that right—strip themselves of their own humanity.
And when you start seeing yourself as a mannequin in need of upkeep, it becomes harder to imagine that other people have thoughts, feelings, or goals that differ from yours.
The Effects of Self-Objectification
Self-objectification isn’t some quirky personality tic; it’s a full-time occupation.
Women who adopt this stance engage in self-surveillance—constantly monitoring their appearance like unpaid employees of the beauty-industrial complex.
The result is a shitshow of misery: body shame, relentless anxiety, depression, disordered eating, and sexual experiences so distracted they could double as unpaid internships (Fredrickson & Roberts, 1997; Tiggemann & Slater, 2015).
Think of it this way: it’s like trying to enjoy a concert while live-streaming yourself to critics who are only there to point out you’re off-key. Eventually, you’re not listening to the music at all.
Body Image and Empathy: The Missing Link
But it gets even more complicated. The effects of self-objectification don’t stop with the Italian women in question. According to the studies, women stuck in this cycle also score lower on empathy. Their ability to recognize other people’s inner lives—what psychologists call “theory of mind”—weakens.
In plain English: obsessing over your reflection doesn’t just warp your relationship with yourself; it makes you less equipped to handle relationships with others. Lower empathy means thinner connections, weaker intimacy, and a kind of social malnutrition.
The Social Machinery Behind the Cycle
And where does this come from?
The usual suspects: Instagram filters, ads, casual comments, and a culture that reliably treats women’s bodies as public property.
The self-objectification cycle is constantly fed by media, marketing, and peer pressure (Calogero, Tantleff-Dunn, & Thompson, 2011).
The effect appears to be cumulative. In other words, the more you absorb the message that your value is tied to your appearance, the less energy you have left to notice that other people are, inconveniently, there.
Why This Matters
So let’s be clear: this isn’t just about women feeling bad about cellulite or crow’s feet.
Perhaps the research is suggesting that body image and empathy are bound together somehow. But for now, this study from Italy suggests that when women dehumanize themselves, they don’t just damae their own dignity—they also lose part of the social glue that allows us all to connect with our fellow humans.
Perhaps the beauty industry isn’t just selling mascara; it’s inadvertently also selling the gradual erosion of empathy. That may sound a bit over the top, but when your own humanity is negotiable, it becomes awfully hard to see anyone else’s as non-negotiable.
Be Well, Stay Kind, and Godspeed.
REFERENCES:
Calogero, R. M., Tantleff-Dunn, S., & Thompson, J. K. (Eds.). (2011). Self-objectification in women: Causes, consequences, and counteractions. American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/12304-000
Di Bernardo, G. A., Pecini, C., Tallone, B., Raguso, G., & Andrighetto, L. (2025). No hard feelings: The role of self-objectification and self-dehumanization in understanding emotions and mental states in cisgender heterosexual women. Psychology of Women Quarterly. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1177/0361684325131130
Fredrickson, B. L., & Roberts, T. (1997). Objectification theory: Toward understanding women’s lived experiences and mental health risks. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 21(2), 173–206. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1471-6402.1997.tb00108.x
Tiggemann, M., & Slater, A. (2015). The internet and body image concerns in preteenage girls. Journal of Early Adolescence, 34(5), 606–620. https://doi.org/10.1177/0272431613501083