Predictors of Self-Worth in Context of Self-Objectification among Hijab and Non-Hijab Wearing Women

Abstract

The present study was aimed to investigate the relationship among internalization, self-surveillance, appearance anxiety, safety anxiety, and self-worth in the context of self-objectification among hijab and non-hijab wearing women basing upon self-objectification theory (Fredrickson & Roberts, 1997). Moreover, role of various demographic variables was also explored in relation to the study variables. Self-Objectification Questionnaire (Noll & Frederickson, 1998), Socio-cultural Attitude towards Appearance Questionnaire4 (Schaefer, et al., 2015), Surveillance subscale of Objectified Body Consciousness Scale (McKinley & Hyde, 1996), Appearance Anxiety Scale (Dion et al., 1990), Contingencies of Self-Worth Scale (Crocker, Luhtanen, Cooper, &Bouvrette, 2003), and the Safety Anxiety Scale developed in the current study were used to measure variables. The study was conducted in three phases. In the first phase Safety Anxiety Scale was developed basing upon focus group discussions with hijab and non-hijab wearing women. Exploratory factor analysis (N = 260) resulted in three subscales that is Dressing Related Anxiety, Men/Situation Related Anxiety, and Reaction/Coping to Anxiety. In Phase II, validation of the other measures was conducted on the same sample of women participants through confirmatory factor analysis. The third phase was the Main Study for hypotheses testing and model testing. Sample consisted of 461 female participants with age of 18 to 30 years. As assumed, the results showed that there was a significant positive relationship of self-objectification with internalization, self-surveillance, appearance anxiety, appearance related self-worth, competition related self-worth, and with the approval from others’ contingent self-worth. Whereas self-objectification showed significant negative relationship with safety anxiety, family support related self-worth, virtue related self-worth and the God’s love related self-worth. On group comparison, non-hijab wearing women scored significantly high on internalization, self-objectification, self-surveillance, appearance anxiety, self-worth contingent to appearance, and approval from others as compared to hijab wearing women who had high score on safety anxiety and God’s love contingent self-worth. Models based on self-objectification theory were tested. The model for women wearing hijab (n = 238) revealed self-objectification and appearance anxiety as mediators for internalization ix in predicting appearance contingent self-worth. Internalization directly predicted the self-surveillance, self-worth contingent to appearance, and approval from others. For non-hijab wearing women self-objectification, self-surveillance, and appearance anxiety mediated the relationship of internalization with appearance and competition contingent self-worth. A unique path observed in this model was that internalization predicted self-surveillance, which further indulged women to self-objectification affecting their self-worth in some domains. A uniqueness in all the three models was that safety anxiety appeared as an independent predictor for all the contingencies of self-worth and showed no relationship with any of the other study variable. Findings are discussed in cultural context. Apart, implications in education and research domains are also discussed.