A swipe to the left, a swipe to the right : Tinder, objectification of others, self-objectification, and body dissatisfaction among heterosexual men

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A swipe to the left, a swipe to the right – Tinder, objectification of others, self-objectification, and body dissatisfaction among heterosexual men

Graduate School of Communication

Master’s program Communication Science: Youth & Media Master’s Thesis

Supervisor: Dr. D. A. (Dian) de Vries Amsterdam, 30.01.2015

Submitted by: Nadine Berlenbach Student number 10696881

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Abstract

In this study, we aimed to test Tinder’s main operating feature; which is evaluating whether to chat with individuals solely based on their profile pictures. We wanted to find out if evaluating whether to chat with individuals that are of romantic/sexual interest, in this case women (vs. evaluating whether to chat with individuals that are not of romantic/sexual interest, in this case men), has an effect on young heterosexual men’s body dissatisfaction. Additionally, we were looking for indirect effects through objectification of others and self-objectification. Therefore, we conducted a web-based one factorial posttest-only randomized experiment within an experimental group of 96 heterosexual young men aged 18-30. All participants had to evaluate a set of profile pictures of either women or men and had to fill out scales regarding objectification of others, self-objectification, and body dissatisfaction. Evaluating whether to chat with people purely based on profile pictures did not lead to objectification of others, but objectifications of others lead to self-objectification. However, self-objectification did not predict body dissatisfaction. The effect of evaluating whether to chat with people based on profile pictures on body dissatisfaction was not mediated by objectification of others and self-objectification.

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A swipe to the left, a swipe to the right – Tinder, objectification of others, self-objectification, and body dissatisfaction among heterosexual men

In our Western society, we can recognize a large amount of objectifying pictures of women and men in mass media. Objectifying pictures show people or parts of their body and are valued by the viewer mostly in terms of their physical attractiveness, and less of their character (Calogero, Tantleff-Dunn, & Thompson, 2011; Frederickson & Roberts, 1997; Harper & Tiggemann, 2008). While objectifying pictures mainly appear in mass media contexts like advertising, movies, and music videos, new dating applications (short apps), like Tinder, bring objectification in media on a different level: Regular, everyday people, instead of models. Nowadays, people present pictures of themselves to a social media audience for the purpose of getting evaluated based on physical attractiveness.

The concept behind the dating app Tinder is that users evaluate other users, solely based on their profile picture. Tinder is a mobile dating app with the aim to make it easier to get to know people from your proximity. Dating partners can be found by setting certain guidelines within the app. For example: the proximity of other app users, based on distance, preferred age and gender (men, women, or both). Technically, match making has never been so easy: a swipe to the right of the screen suggests the users are considered as interesting; with a swipe to the left they are dismissed. In case that two Tinder users swiped each other to the right they generate a match, which allows them to go one step further and chat via

Tinder’s own instant messenger.

Having reached more than 10 million daily users and 50 million matches, Tinder became very popular among young adults within the last two years (Empson, 2013;

Lapowsky, 2014; Lukitsch, 2014). To our knowledge, the body of research on Tinder is still in its infancy. As Tinder is a very young media phenomenon, research on the topic just

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emerged and is expected to grow over the coming years. Most information found on Tinder is from non-academic resources and deal with its functionality.

What interested us the most about Tinder, was its unique mechanism of evaluating whether the user wants to chat with a person purely based on a profile picture. This could have indirect effects on the users, specifically objectification. But why objectification? Because objectification occurs in the context with attractiveness (e.g. Wiseman & Moradi, 2010). Attractiveness in turn is related with whether someone is of romantic/sexual interest (Toma & Hancock, 2010; Weeden & Sabini, 2007), which we assume to have an influence on whether we want to talk to somebody in a Tinder like dating context. So, while people

evaluate whether they want to chat with somebody on Tinder, they evaluate whether they find this person attractive or not. This is why we assumed that the dating app Tinder is related with objectification.

Although a lot of research on objectification has been conducted (for an overview see Moradi & Huang, 2008), there are several gaps in our knowledge. If we put it in the context of Tinder’s feature of evaluating whether to chat with someone based on profile pictures. First, we need to know some basic information on objectification research. Objectification research suggests that when others are judged by their physical appearance through visual inspection and evaluation, objectification occurs (Bartky, 1990; Muehlenkamp, Swanson, & Brausch, 2005; Moradi, Dirks, & Matteson, 2005; Strelan & Hargreaves, 2005; Swami, Coles, Wyrozumska, Wilson, Salem, & Furnham, 2010). This phenomenon is called

“objectification of others”. However, there is no research on the effect of evaluating whether to chat with someone based on profile pictures that are of romantic/sexual interest in a Tinder like setting and whether this leads people to objectify others to a greater extent. Our first aim was to test this relationship.

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Second, by looking at other Tinder users profile pictures, is it only other people that are being objectified? Evidence has accumulated that being objectified or viewing

objectification of others may lead individuals to objectify themselves to a greater extend (as reviewed in Moradi & Huang, 2008). The term “self-objectification” implies the phenomenon that individuals embark on viewing themselves solely as a body and concentrate mainly on physical appearance rather than their character and feelings (Frederickson & Roberts, 1997). In the context of Tinder, people might start to ask themselves whether they are attractive enough to date other individuals shown in the app. As a result we aimed to test the effects of this unclear causal direction.

Third, scholars have observed that self-objectification can have a serious impact on personal well-being (Frederickson & Roberts, 1997; Moradi, 2010; Moradi & Huang, 2008; Tiggemann, 2011; Tiggemann & Williams, 2012). Self-objectification has been linked with greater body shame, anxiety, and several physical as well as mental health problems (Moradi & Huang, 2008; Tiggemann, 2011). “Body dissatisfaction” occurs when individuals have negative thoughts about their own body (Grogan, 2008). A review by McCabe and

Ricciardelli (2004) explicitly investigated studies that have examined body dissatisfaction among males and found that it has been linked with eating disorders, poor psychological adjustment, exercise dependence, steroid use and other health behaviors.

Fourth, the majority of the research-examining objectification focuses mainly on women, looking at various aspects like hetero- vs homosexual women, socioeconomic backgrounds, cultures, etc. (Moradi & Huang, 2008). But, since the last decades, men’s objectification in the media increased (Leit, Pope, & Gray, 2001; Moradi & Huang 2008; Pope, Olivardia, Borowiecki, & Cohane, 2001; Rohlinger, 2002) as well as the knowledge that men are more concerned about their physical appearance (Barlett, Vowels, & Saucier, 2008; Luciano, 2001; Parks & Read, 1997; Pope, Phillips, & Olivardia, 2000), which can lead

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to negative consequences. The lack of knowledge on men’s body dissatisfaction lead to the decision on just focusing on men in this research because it is important to gain further insights in men’s health issues. As Tinder users are on average 23 years old (Empson, 2013), this study examines young men between the ages 18-30.

The overall aim of this research was to test if evaluating whether chatting only with people that are of romantic/sexual interest, namely women (vs. not of romantic/sexual interest, namely men) leads heterosexual men to objectification of others and

self-objectification, and does this result in personal body dissatisfaction? To see causal effects, experimental research is needed. It is important to fill the above-mentioned gaps to contribute to a better understanding of body related issues that men face. Possibly, we can support them with recommendations towards solving these issues. Furthermore, we can contribute to the scientific community as this research tries to broaden the knowledge in this niche.

Objectification theory

The dating app Tinder was the main object of investigation in this study. Especially its feature of evaluating whether the user wants to chat with individuals solely based on their profile pictures, who are of romantic/sexual interest, raised our central interest.

Objectification theory was chosen as framework for this study because it demonstrated validity in the investigation of media effects on body image (see review Grabe, Ward, & Hyde, 2008), which is useful for our research question. In the following we present our main concepts and hypotheses.

Objectification theory was established by Frederickson and Roberts (1997), who researched on the effects of sexually objectifying experiences on women’s mental health risks. Fredrickson and Roberts define sexually objectifying experiences as “the experience of being treated as a body (or collection of body parts) valued predominantly for its use to (or consumption by) others” (p. 174). People, who self-objectify themselves may internalize

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these experiences, which can lead to serious mental health issues, like body shame, appearance anxiety, or reduced consciousness about personal emotional and mental

conditions (Calogero, Davis, & Thompson, 2005; Noll & Fredrickson, 1998; Tiggemann & Williams, 2012).

In the context of objectification (Frederickson & Roberts, 1997; Moradi, 2010), there are two types of objectifying experiences that need to be differentiated: First, there are direct experiences of objectification, which result in the effect that a person is valued primarily based on her/his appearance. And second, indirect experiences of objectification, which come to view another person that is valued primarily based on appearance.

According to objectification theory (Frederickson & Roberts, 1997), objectification of others, when an individual is valued mainly in terms of her/his physical attractiveness, leads people to self-objectification. To self-objectify is to take on an observer’s perspective when thinking about one’s own body. Strelan and Hargreaves (2005) define the relationship between objectification of others and self-objectification as a circle: being aware of other people’s appearance makes one aware of the own appearance and vice versa. Moreover, self-objectification and self-objectification of others have an influence on body dissatisfaction (Strelan & Hargreaves, 2005).

In our opinion, Tinder’s feature of evaluating whether the user wants to chat with individuals solely based on profile pictures basically is judging others in terms of on their physical appearance, which comes under objectification. This premise leads us to the assumption that there is a connection between Tinder’s feature and objectification of others. As there is currently no research on this topic, we assume that there might be a relation. If we extend this to our assumption that objectification can have an influence on body

dissatisfaction, we can further assume that Tinder’s feature indirectly has an effect on body dissatisfaction through objectification.

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Tinder and objectification of others

Objectification theory (Frederickson & Roberts, 1997) states that objectification of others can be described as the act of valuing a person mainly in terms of her/his physical attractiveness. We assume that women are objectified more by heterosexual men because sexual desire can lead to objectification (Bartky, 1990). Therefore, we predicted our

experiment would yield a greater objectification of women in the experimental group, when compared to those heterosexual men who evaluated men in the control group. Previous research by Strelan & Hargreaves (2005) found that men tend to objectify women more than men, which provides evidence for our prediction.

The assumption that heterosexual men objectify women to a greater extent during the experiment led us to assume that heterosexual men will also objectify others in general to a greater extent. We assume this because the manipulation during the experiment was exposure to an objectifying experience, which can contribute to a general objectification of others and therefore lead to the internalization of an objectifying view.

By using Tinder’s feature of evaluating other people by their profile pictures, physical appearance becomes more important. A result can be the internalization of an objectifying view, which in turn can become part of heterosexual men’s schema. This is why we assume that Tinder’s evaluating feature leads to a trait/general objectification of others. Therefore, the following hypothesis has been formulated:

H1: Among heterosexual men, those who evaluate whether to chat with an individual solely based on profile pictures that are of romantic/sexual interest to them, namely women, will objectify others to a greater extent than the heterosexual men who evaluate whether to chat with an individual solely based on profile pictures that are not of romantic/sexual interest to them, namely men.

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Objectification of others’ relationship with self-objectification

Based on Frederickson and Roberts (1997) objectification theory, objectification of others can lead to self-objectification because being aware of other people’s physical appearance can lead to be more aware of the own physical appearance. This is why we assume that after the experiment our trait objectification of others will lead to a greater self-objectification within those heterosexual men that objectify others more. This idea is supported by previous research by Strelan and Hargreaves (2005) and Lindner, Tantleff-Dunn, and Jentsch (2012) that found relations between objectification of others and self-objectification. Thus, we hypothesized the following:

H2: Heterosexual men who objectify others to a greater extent will also self-objectify to a greater extent compared to heterosexual men who objectify others to a lesser extent. Tinder and self-objectification through objectification of others

In objectification theory, Frederickson and Roberts (1997) describe the process of objectification, which states objectification of others leading to self-objectification. This process might get initiated by Tinder’s feature of evaluating others profile pictures. This led us to the following assumptions: If Tinder’s mechanism of evaluating whether to chat with individuals solely based on profile pictures that are of romantic/sexual interest, namely women (vs. not of romantic/sexual interest, namely men) leads to objectification of others (H1) and objectification of others leads to self-objectification (H2). Then we expect in this research that evaluating whether to chat with individuals solely based on profile pictures leads to self-objectification through objectification of others. Therefore, we hypothesized the following:

H3a: Among heterosexual men, those who evaluate whether to chat with individuals solely based on profile pictures that are of romantic/sexual interest to them, namely women, will self-objectify to a greater extent than those heterosexual men who evaluate whether to chat

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with individuals solely based on profile pictures that are not of romantic/sexual interest to them, namely men.

H3b: This effect is mediated by objectification of others. Self-objectification and body dissatisfaction

According to objectification theory, objectifying experiences can lead to undesirable outcomes like body dissatisfaction (Grippo & Hill, 2008; Myers & Crowther, 2007).

Therefore, we assume that heterosexual men who self-objectify to a greater extent are assumed to also be more dissatisfied with their bodies.

Previous research found a relationship between increased self-objectification among women and men and decreased body satisfaction (e.g. McKinley, 1998; McKinley & Hyde, 1996; Strelan et al., 2003). Martins, Tiggemann, and Kirkbride (2007) found significant positive correlations between self-objectification and upper body dissatisfaction among heterosexual men, and a review by Blond (2008) suggests an increase of men’s body dissatisfaction. Therefore, we hypothesized:

H4: Heterosexual men who self-objectify to a greater extent will be more dissatisfied with their body compared to those heterosexual men who self-objectify to a lesser extent.

Tinder and body dissatisfaction through objectification of others and self-objectification As mentioned earlier, objectification theory defines the process of objectification, which states objectification of others leading to self-objectification, which can result in body dissatisfaction. In the previous steps of our study we expected that Tinder’s feature of

evaluating whether to chat with individuals solely based on their profile pictures that are of romantic/sexual interest, namely women (vs. not of romantic/sexual interest, namely men) leads to objectification of others (H1), which leads to self-objectification (H2), leading to body dissatisfaction (H4). Therefore, we assume that evaluating whether to chat with individuals solely based on profile pictures has an indirect effect on body dissatisfaction

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through objectification of others and self-objectification. Thus, the following hypothesis has been formulated:

H5a: Among heterosexual men, those who evaluate whether to chat with individuals solely based on profile pictures that are of romantic/sexual interest to them, namely women, will be to a greater extent dissatisfied with their bodies compared to those heterosexual men who evaluate whether to chat with individuals solely based on profile pictures that are not of romantic/sexual interest to them, namely men.

H5b: This effect is mediated by objectification of others and self-objectification. Method

For the current study, we conducted a web-based one factorial posttest-only

randomized experiment. We decided to gather data through a web-based experiment to offer the participants the possibility to complete the design in a private and natural setting, like their home. Web-based experiments increase the participant’s autonomy and reduces biases, which can occur in a lab-environment. Furthermore, more participants from different regions can be reached through a web-based experiment.

Participants and procedure

For the web-based experiment 262 people were recruited. Participants were recruited over four weeks via snowball-sampling using Facebook (status updates, personal messages and posting the link into various groups) and handing out flyers. Participants got the chance to win a 10 Euro amazon gift voucher in a lottery. To be included in our analysis, participants needed to be heterosexual men, between the age of 18 to 30, and living in Western societies (Europe or North America). Twelve women, five over 30-year-olds, seven bisexual and 29 homosexual men, two men living in an Asian society, and one participant who scored positive in the suspicion check needed to be excluded from the analysis because they did not meet our including criteria. Furthermore, another 110 data sets needed to be excluded from

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the analysis and deleted as these participants did not finish the experiment and dropped out during the procedure. In the end, the sample consisted of a total of N = 96 heterosexual men aged 18-30.

The mean age of the participants was 24.9 years (SD = 2.7). BMI ranged from 16.4 (underweight) to 41.5 (obese) (M = 24.3, SD = 3.5). Regarding relationship status, 45.8% of the men that participated are single, 42.7% in an exclusive relationship, 4.2% in an open relationship. 7.3% of the participants were interested in dating, 5.2% married, and 1%

divorced. Of all the participants 27.1% do, 24% might, and 49% do not consider dating at the moment. Most of the participants were students of higher education (75%). The sample consisted of men from different backgrounds, but all living in western societies (Europe and North America), most of them living in Germany (61.5%) and the Netherlands (25%).

First of all, the departmental ethical committee granted permission for the procedure of this study. Participants could take part in the online study by following the link to the experiment, which was programmed with the survey tool Qualtrics. After agreeing to the informed consent and indicating that the participants are 18 years old or older, the study started. First, the participants had to indicate their gender. Female participants were directly redirected to the end of the experiment with a notification explaining that this research was aimed at men.

Male participants were randomly assigned to one of the experimental groups, received either female or male profile pictures, and were asked to indicate whether they would like to chat with that woman/man. After looking at the set of pictures the participants had to describe themselves in five sentences in an open question. Next, participants had to choose what applied to them in two following questions; first, there were statements on objectification of others and self-objectification and they had to specify what applied to them on the

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1996). In the next step they had to indicate how satisfied they are with certain parts of their body on the Body Areas Satisfaction Scale (Cash, 1994). After this, the participants had to look at the pictures again and rate on a 10-point scale how attractive they find each

woman/man shown. Subsequently, participants had to fill out their demographic data and had to go through a suspicion check to test whether the participant was aware of the aims of the study because we were aiming for an unbiased sample and wanted to prevent deception. One participant guessed the study aims and needed to be excluded. Finally, participants were redirected and asked to fill in their contact information for a debriefing method in a separate survey. All participants were informed that their email addresses were not linked to their answers and that we collect them only for debriefing them and being able to contact them in case they won the gift voucher in the lottery.

Priming Stimuli and control group

The stimulus material for the priming stimuli condition consisted in total of nine profile pictures of the gender of romantic/sexual interest. That means heterosexual men had to evaluate a set of nine female profile pictures. The control group on the other hand, had to evaluate the gender that was not of romantic/sexual interest to the participants. Thus, the control group received a set of nine male profile pictures. Participants were randomly assigned to the priming stimuli and the control group. A total of n = 58 was assigned to the stimuli condition that had to evaluate profile pictures of the gender of romantic/sexual interest, namely women. Whereas n = 38 heterosexual men received the control condition that had to evaluate profile pictures of men.

The two sets of profile pictures (see appendix A and B) consisted of three very attractive, three medium attractive, and three less attractive women or men. The pictures for the web-experiment were taken from the photography platform Flickr and a set of 21 pictures for each gender was first selected and pretested with 24 participants (female n = 12, male n =

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12) to find out which nine pictures per gender could be used in the actual experiment. In the pretest participants were asked to rate on a 10 point scale how attractive (1=not attractive at all, 10=very attractive) they found each woman/man. After evaluating the data of the pretest a selection of the pictures that will be used in the experiment was met. To test whether the two sets of pictures of women and men are comparable and valid, paired sample t-tests were conducted. First, we looked at the distribution within the groups high, medium and less attractive. In the high attractive group, there was a no significant difference in the scores for men (M = 7.5, SD = 1.67) and women (M = 7.5, SD = 1.28); t(23) = .000, p = 1, 95% CI. Regarding the medium attractive pictures, there was also no significant difference in the scores for men (M = 5.5, SD = 1.74) and women (M = 5.5, SD = 1.45); t(23) = .173, p = .864, 95% CI. Looking at the low attractive group, there was a no significant difference in the scores for men (M = 3.6, SD = 1.56) and women (M = 3.4, SD = 1.47) conditions; t(23) = .577, p = .574, 95% CI. Finally, we compared all the pictures of women and men together. There was a no significant difference in the scores for men (M = 5.5, SD = 1.06) and women (M = 5.5, SD = 1.30) conditions; t(23) = .121, p = .905, 95% CI. These results suggest that the pictures of women and men are comparable regarding the distribution of high, medium and low attractiveness. But not only was a statistical significance necessary to secure that the pictures are suitable. It was also important to secure that the pictures in both groups showed the same amount of body and similar poses. Each picture got evaluated by our researcher, who manually proved that each female profile picture had a male counterpart that was comparable regarding in the way how the person was displayed, the amount of body shown, the pose and gesture, or other body aspects like hair color. For example a women with dark hair, looking right into the camera, the whole body shown in a sitting position, the arms resting on the upper leg, received a male counter that came as close as possible towards these attributes (he had brown hair, looking into the camera the whole body shown, the arms

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resting on the upper leg, see appendix A and B, figure A5 and figure A13). All these requirements were fulfilled in the selected sets of pictures.

Measures

Objectification of others. Objectification of others was measured with using the surveillance subscale of McKinley and Hyde’s (1996) Objectified Body Consciousness Scale (see appendix C). To measure objectification of others, items were rephrased so that all references to “I,” “my body,” or “how I look” instead referred to “other people,” “their

body,” and “how other people look.” In All responses were measured on a 7-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree).

Factor analysis (PCA) for objectification of others showed that the eight items loaded on two components with an eigenvalue higher than one (factor 1: EV = 2.57; R2 = .32, factor 2: EV = 1.55; R2 = .19). Two items loaded negatively and further inquisition revealed that recoding these variables was appropriate. After reversing the coding of these variables, five items loaded onto factor 1. Consequently, three items have been excluded in the following reliability analysis. A reliability analysis of the five items loading onto factor one revealed a sufficiently high Cronbach’s alpha α = .73 (M = 4.14; SD = 1.2). Thus, adding up these five items and dividing them by five have computed a new variable labeled as objectification of others.

Self-objectification. Self-objectification was measured with the original surveillance subscale of McKinley and Hyde’s (1996) Objectified Body Consciousness Scale (see

appendix D). Responses were measured on a 7-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree).

Regarding self-objectification, factor analysis revealed as well that all the eight items loaded on two components with eigenvalues above one (factor 1: EV = 3.37; R2 = .42, factor 2: EV = 1.11; R2 = .14). Two items loaded negatively and were recoded. But, as they were

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still loading onto the second factor, they were excluded. Reliability analysis of the remaining five items proved that they load onto factor one with a Cronbach’s alpha α = .76 (M = 4.05; SD = 1.0). Therefore, a new variable for self-objectification was computed with the

remaining five variables.

Body dissatisfaction. To measure body dissatisfaction the Body Areas Satisfaction Scale (see appendix E), which is a subscale of Cash’s (1994) Multidimensional Body-Self Relations Questionnaire, was used in this study. The scale asked the participants about how satisfied they are with eight different parts of their body (height, weight, hair, face, upper torso, mid torso, lower torso, muscle torso) on a 5-point scale rating ranging from 1 (very dissatisfied) to 5 (very satisfied).

The factor analysis for body dissatisfaction showed that the eight items loaded on three factors with a higher eigenvalue than one (factor 1: EV = 2.75; R2 = .34, factor 2: EV = 1.25; R2 = .14, factor 3: EV = 1.15; R2 = .14). After four items were removed from the scale, the remaining four factors all loaded onto one scale. The reliability test for this new scale revealed a high Cronbach’s alpha α = .74 (M = 3.28; SD = 0.7). Afterwards, a new variable for body dissatisfaction was created.

Demographic variables. Socio demographic information was collected regarding gender, age, sexual orientation, relationship status, interest in dating, height and weight (to calculate BMI), country of birth, country of residence, ethnicity, highest education, current occupation, and media use. A suspicion check was conducted and a check whether the participants had issues with the language (English) of this study.

Results

First of all, we identified three missing values in our data set, which we replaced by mean substitution. Before testing the hypotheses, we examined whether there were any differences between the two conditions in participants’ background characteristics. The

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independent samples t-test showed that the two conditions of the experiment were not

significantly different with regard to age (t(94) = .49, p = .625) or BMI (t(94) = .15, p = .881) of the participants. Thus, the randomization of our two experimental groups was successful.

Furthermore, we run a correlation analysis to see if there was a relation between our control variables and our dependent variables. Therefore, we calculated correlations between (a) objectification of others, (b) self-objectification and (c) body dissatisfaction and the background variables age, education and BMI. (a) There were no significant correlations between objectification of others and the background variables age (r = .07, p = .494) and education (r = -.08, p = .438). But there was a significant correlation between objectification of others and BMI (r = .24, p = .017). (b) Regarding self-objectification, there were no

significant correlations between the background variables age (r = .06, p = .577), education (r = -.03, p = .782), and BMI (r = .14, p = .176). (c) Correlations between body dissatisfaction and age (r = .20, p = .057), education (r = -.02, p = .816), and BMI (r = -.14, p = .166) showed no significant results.

Hypothesis 1 predicted that among heterosexual men, those who had to evaluate whether they want to chat with individuals solely based on profile pictures that are of

romantic/sexual interest to them, namely women, will objectify others to a greater extent than the group that had to evaluate whether to chat with individuals solely based on profile

pictures that are not of romantic/sexual interest to them, namely men. An independent sample t-test showed that the heterosexual man, who had to evaluate women (M = 4.08, SD =1.23) were not objectifying others to a greater extent compared to the heterosexual men, who had to evaluate men (M = 4.22, SD = 1.06); t(94) = -.58, p = .562. Therefore, H1 is not supported.

The second hypothesis assumed that heterosexual men, who objectify others to a greater extent, will also self-objectify to a greater extent compared to those heterosexual men, who report objectification of others to a lesser extent. Regression analysis confirmed that the

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model with objectification of others as independent variable and self-objectification as dependent variable was significant and positive, F(1, 95) = 33.72, p < .001. Therefore, this regression model can be used to predict self-objectification. But the strength of the prediction was moderate, as only 26 per cent of the variation in self-objectification can be predicted on the basis of objectification of others (R2 = .26). Objectification of others, b = .51, t = 5.81, p < .001, 95% CI [.29, .60] had a significant, moderately strong positive association with self-objectification. That means heterosexual men with higher objectification of others also reported higher self-objectification, supporting H2.

The third hypothesis assumed that (a) among heterosexual men, those who had to evaluate whether they want to chat with individuals solely based on profile pictures that are of romantic/sexual interest to them, namely women, will objectify themselves to a greater extent than the group that had to evaluate whether to chat with individuals solely based on profile pictures that are not of romantic/sexual interest to them, namely men. Furthermore it was assumed, that (b) this effect was mediated by trait objectification of others. To test this indirect effect, the PROCESS macro (Hayes, 2015) for SPSS model 4 with 10,000

bootstrapped samples was used. The indirect effect evaluating whether to chat with people shown on profile pictures on self-objectification through objectification of others was not significant, b= .06, SE = .11, Bt bca 95% CI [-.16, .27]. There was also no significant direct effect of evaluating whether to chat with people shown on profile pictures on

self-objectification, b= -.26, SE = .18, p = .158. Thus, H3a and H3b are not supported.

Hypothesis 4 stated that heterosexual men, who self-objectify to a greater extent will be more dissatisfied with their bodies compared to those heterosexual men, who

self-objectify to a lesser extent. Results of a regression analysis showed that self-objectification as independent variable did not significantly predict body dissatisfaction as dependent variable, F(1, 95) = 2.25, p = .136. The regression model cannot be used to predict body dissatisfaction

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because only two per cent of the variation in body dissatisfaction can be predicted on the basis of self-objectification (R2 = .02). Self-objectification, b = -.15, t = -1.50, p = .136, 95% CI [3.13, 4.25] had no significant association with body dissatisfaction, rejecting H4.

The last hypothesis, H5, expected (a) that among heterosexual men, those who had to evaluate whether to chat with individuals solely based on profile pictures that are of

romantic/sexual interest to them, namely women, will be more dissatisfied with their bodies than the heterosexual men, who had to evaluate whether to chat with individuals solely based on profile pictures that are not of romantic/sexual interest to them, namely men. (b) This effect was expected to be mediated by objectification of others and self-objectification. Again PROCESS (Hayes, 2015) for SPSS was employed to test the indirect effects but this time we used model 6 with 10,000 bootstrapped samples. The indirect effect of evaluating whether to chat with people shown on profile pictures on body dissatisfaction through objectification of others and self-objectification was not significant, b= -.01, SE = .02, Bt bca 95% CI [-.07, .01]. The total effect was also not significant, b= .03, SE = .14, p = .824. There was no additional direct effect of evaluating whether to chat with people shown on profile pictures on body dissatisfaction, b= .00, SE = .14, p = .981. Therefore, H5a and H5b are rejected.

Discussion

The overall aim of this study was to test if evaluating whether to chat with individuals solely based on profile pictures that are of romantic/sexual interest, namely women (vs. not of romantic/sexual interest, namely men) leads heterosexual men to objectification of others and self-objectification and did this result in personal body dissatisfaction. The results did not support this prediction. Still, the present study contributes to objectification research with regard to the dating app Tinder. To our knowledge, the current study was the first one to investigate on Tinder’s effects due to its unique feature of evaluating whether to chat with individuals solely based on profile pictures on body dissatisfaction in heterosexual men and

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to test underlying mechanisms (objectification of others and self-objectification) on this effect.

Looking at the different effects on trait objectification of others in our two

experimental groups (H1), we found that there was no significant difference. Heterosexual men, evaluating whether to chat with women, did not objectify others to a greater extent compared to those heterosexual man, who had to evaluate whether to chat with men. This finding does conflict with traditional objectification theory findings (Frederickson & Robins, 1997). Furthermore, our findings are not in line with previous research by Strelan &

Hargreaves (2005), who found that that men tend to objectify women more than men. Maybe other factors, like BMI, which we controlled for, play a bigger role, as we could see in our results: a higher BMI among heterosexual men was associated with a higher objectification of others. Thus, we could assume that men who are muscular objectify more because they are more body conscious, fixed on bodies. As we could not find any research so far that looked at the relationship between BMI and objectification of others, we recommend that future research should test such implications thoroughly before any conclusions are drawn.

Another alternative explanation for this result is that it is not Tinder’s evaluation feature that has an influence on objectification of others, but maybe social comparison. Research by Lindner et al. (2012) found that there are strong correlations between objectification and social comparison. So it is not the fact that heterosexual men evaluate others but the fact that they compare themselves with others might have an influence on objectification of others. Interestingly, heterosexual men who evaluated whether to chat with men reported slightly higher results. This could be associated with the fact that social

comparison occurs more among one’s own kind (Festinger, 1954). Future research should examine this relationship further, before more conclusions are drawn.

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Concerning the effects of objectification of others on self-objectification (H2), we found a positive correlational relationship between those two variables among the

heterosexual men. Thus, our findings support Strelan and Hargreaves (2005) assumption that a possible relationship among self-objectification and objectification of others could also be working in the reverse direction. Previous studies rarely have investigated this direction. Furthermore, Lindner et al. (2012) found a reciprocal relation between self-objectification and objectification of others.

The third hypothesis, which was that (a) among heterosexual men, those who evaluate whether to chat with individuals solely based on profile pictures that are of romantic/sexual interest, namely women (vs. not of romantic/sexual interest, namely men), will self-objectify to a greater extent, (b) mediated through objectification of others, needed to be fully rejected. Even though media effects are suggested to have an influence on self-objectification (Harper & Tiggemann, 2008), this does not mean that objectification of others can be seen as

predecessor of self-objectification, despite the fact that there was a positive, significant relationship between the two. Moreover, objectification of others and self-objectification might be individual constructs that are related but stand on the same level and function parallel to each other and not in a serial sequence. This assumption is based on the ‘circle of objectification’ described in Lindner et al. (2012).

In contrast to our expectations, a greater self-objectification was not related to a greater dissatisfaction with their bodies in heterosexual men (H4). Previous research found a relation between increased self-objectification among women and men and decreased body satisfaction (e.g., McKinley, 1998; McKinley & Hyde, 1996; Strelan et al., 2003), but our results conflict with these findings. Alternative explanations of possible predictors of body dissatisfaction in heterosexual young men can be age, family pressure or self-esteem (Green & Pritchard, 2003). Body dissatisfaction can be the outcome of unrealistic societal beauty

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ideals, like men are expected to have a muscular body. But most of the people, or in our particular case men, do not look like the ideal (Buote, Wilson, Strahan, Gazzola, & Papps, 2011), and not confirming to these ideals can lead to body dissatisfaction (Harvey & Robinson, 2003; Morry & Staska, 2001). More research is needed on the factors that

influence male body dissatisfaction. Here, differences between hetero- and homosexual men might be an interesting aspect, as the latter might have different issues and triggers leading to body dissatisfaction compared to heterosexual men.

The fifth hypothesis, which (a) suggested a possible relationship between heterosexual men evaluating whether to chat with individuals solely based on profile pictures that are of romantic/sexual interest, namely women (vs. not of romantic/sexual interest, namely men), and body dissatisfaction, (b) mediated through objectification of others and

self-objectification needed to be entirely rejected. One possible effect that could explain an indirect effect of evaluating whether to chat with individuals solely based on profile pictures on body dissatisfaction in young heterosexual men could be the following: On dating

platforms, like Tinder, people try to put their best face forward (Hancock & Toma, 2009), so they tend to choose only the best looking pictures of themselves as their profile pictures. This notion applies for social networking sites like Facebook as well (Siibak, 2009), which is the source of the profile pictures used in Tinder. Going on Tinder and evaluating whether to chat with individuals solely based on profile pictures possibly influences body image in a similar way as viewing the beauty ideal in mass media. It would be useful to investigate the degree to which Tinder is related to exposure of body ideals, and whether this influences the effect of whether to chat with individuals solely based on profile pictures on body dissatisfaction. Future research needs to test different factors to see whether they have an indirect effect on body dissatisfaction to see whether Tinder influences this construct.

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Limitations and future directions

The results of this research must be seen in the context of several limitations. First of all, we used a one factorial posttest-only randomized experimental design. The main critique about this research design is the fact that the results of the posttest cannot be compared. It would be interesting to see in future research if the results would look different in a pre-post design.

Second, we used a web-based experiment to conduct our research. Disadvantages of web-experiments are the lack of experimental control (Reips, 2000) and the risk of multiple submissions by the same participant. Another issue of web-based experiments is that there is no control if the participants really belong to the defined sample. In our case for example, women could have participated by clicking on the button that they are male when we asked for the gender at the beginning of the experiment.

A third limitation concerns the sample. It only looked at heterosexual men between 18 and 30 years old. Thus, the experiment cannot conclude how evaluating whether to chat with individuals solely based on profile pictures that are of romantic/sexual interest may affect women. Also, we could not gain any information on how evaluating whether to chat with people shown on profile pictures would affect homosexual or bisexual men. Furthermore, the study lacked statistical power to test whether ethnicity moderated our results. Ethnicity may influence the degree to which certain situations lead to self-objectification (Moradi, 2010). Therefore, the results of this research cannot be generalized to other groups in terms of gender, sexual orientation, or ethnicity.

The group size of the two conditions describes a forth limitation of this study. The survey tool Qualtrics equally randomized the participants automatically to the two

experimental groups. Theoretically, both groups should have had the same amount of participants and been therefore comparable. But the cleaning of the dataset resulted in two

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unequally sized groups (stimuli n = 58, control n =38), which did not make the groups comparable.

Fifth, the web-experiment experienced quite a large dropout rate of 42 per cent. Possible explanations for this could be that participants were confused and overwhelmed with the open question, where they had to describe themselves in five sentences. Another

suggestion would be that some of the participants were not patient enough to look twice at the set of pictures.

A potential limitation could be that the women on the pictures were rated less strict compared to the men on the pictures. Participants of the pretest – male as well as female – gave the feedback that they were stricter with judging men’s attractiveness compared to women’s attractiveness. To research on the strictness in evaluating women and men by their look, can be an interesting aspect for future research.

Despite these limitations, the current state of research on the topic shows researchers and practitioners that Tinder’s effects due to its unique mechanism of evaluating whether to chat with individuals solely based on profile pictures does not seem to pose a risk to body dissatisfaction in young heterosexual men. Or that evaluating women or men seem to have the same risks. Nonetheless, more research is needed to get a clearer sight in this complex research field.

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Appendix A

Stimuli: Profile pictures of women Figure A1: Woman 1

Retrieved from: https://www.flickr.com/photos/exil-fischkopp/14698211095

https://www.flickr.com/photos/adam_jones/3774286008

Retrieved from:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/pedrosimoes7/4980103481/i n/photostream/

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https://www.flickr.com/photos/72213316@N00/597227908 5

https://www.flickr.com/photos/fromthefrontend/453091055 6

https://www.flickr.com/photos/ileohidalgo/9534539923/in/ photostream/

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https://www.flickr.com/photos/yuri_samoilov/9975623096

Retrieved from: https://www.flickr.com/photos/andreas-kollmorgen/8731108535/in/photostream/

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Appendix B

Control: Profile pictures of men Figure A10: Man 1

https://www.flickr.com/photos/aleksejleonov/4471809298/in /photostream/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/zarrion101/7526725478/in/ph otostream/

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Retrieved from:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/leorey/12439610803/in/photo stream/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/davetada/5707545704/in/phot ostream/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/israelphotogallery/11220175 576

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https://www.flickr.com/photos/nathancsonka/4139043373

Figure A17: Man 8 © Israel_photo_gallery Retrieved from: https://www.flickr.com/photos/israelphotogallery/14553295 881/in/photostream/ Figure 18: Man 9 © Till Krech Retrieved from: https://www.flickr.com/photos/extranoise/142272070/in/pho tostream/

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Appendix C

Scale: Objectification of others

Modified surveillance subscale of McKinley and Hyde’s (1996) Objectified Body Consciousness Scale.

Please rate how much the following statements appeal to you:

1. I rarely think about how other people look.

2. I think it is more important that other people’s clothes are comfortable than whether they look good on them.

3. I think more about how other peoples bodies feel than how their body looks.

4. I rarely compare how other people look with how I look.

5. During the day, I think about how other people look many times.

6. I often worry about whether the clothes other people are wearing make them look good.

7. I rarely worry about how other people look to me.

8. I am more concerned with what other peoples body can do than how it looks. Or: I am more concerned that other people’s bodies are healthy than how it looks.

All statements will be rated on a 7-point Likert scale (1=Strongly Disagree and 7=Strongly Agree).

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Appendix D

Scale: Self-objectification

Surveillance subscale of McKinley and Hyde’s (1996) Objectified Body Consciousness Scale.

Please rate how much the following statements appeal to you:

1. I rarely think about how I look.

2. I think it is more important that my clothes are comfortable than whether they look good on me.

3. I think more about how my body feels than how my body looks.

4. I rarely compare how I look with how other people look.

5. During the day, I think about how I look many times.

6. I often worry about whether the clothes I am wearing make me look good.

7. I rarely worry about how I look to other people.

8. I am more concerned with what my body can do than how it looks.

All statements will be rated on a 7-point Likert scale (1=Strongly Disagree and 7=Strongly Agree).

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Appendix E

Scale: Body dissatisfaction

Body Areas Satisfaction Scale of Cash’s (1994) Multidimensional Body-Self Relations Questionnaire

How satisfied are you with your…

1. …height? 2. …weight? 3. …hair? 4. …face? 5. …upper torso? 6. …mid torso? 7. …lower torso? 8. …muscle tone?

All statements will be rated on a 5-point dissatisfaction-satisfaction scale (1=very dissatisfied, 5=very satisfied).