Sexual Objectification among abusive and non-abusive romantic relationship context

Sexual objectification is one of the most common manifestations of female discrimination in western society. However, few studies have examined sexual objectification in the context of general romantic relationships and specifically among those romantic relationships where intimate partner violence (IPV) exists. This presentation will focus on the sexual objectification of romantic relationships (first set of studies) and its role in domestic violence (second set of studies) by addressing female and male perspectives of the phenomenon. The novel contribution of the first set of studies is to examine the relationship satisfaction consequences of the sexual objectification perpetrator (study 1) as well as the sexual objectification target (study 2). The second set of studies is focused on analysing the role of sexual objectification in IPV victimization (study 3) and in IPV perpetration (Study 4). I will also describe the experimental design that we are currently running by manipulating sexual objectification and assessing IPV-related behaviours in couples, as well as, future research ideas for next steps into this line of research. Finally, I will discuss how to incorporate a sexual objectification perspective into IPV intervention programs and its practical implications.

* Gemma Saez is a researcher in Social Psychology at the University of Granada (Spain)