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We investigated the relationship of self-sexualization to self-objectification, weight concerns, self-efficacy, academic outcomes, and career aspirations among preadolescent girls. Participants were 89 six- to nine-year-old girls; parental reports were also obtained. Two thirds of girls showed signs of self-sexualization by choosing a sexualized doll over a nonsexualized doll as who they preferred to look like and/or who they currently look like. Girls who self-sexualized reported higher self-objectification and weight concerns than girls who did not self-sexualize. Self-sexualization was unrelated to social, emotional, and academic self-efficacy and to girls’ career confidence and interest. However, parents of girls who self-sexualized reported their daughters had lower academic performance and enjoyed school less compared to girls who did not self-sexualize. Additionally, parents of girls who self-sexualized had lower academic expectations for their daughters. It is possible that in preadolescence self-sexualization affects girls’ body cognitions and parental expectations without (yet) affecting self-efficacy or academic goals.

Peer sexual harassment (PSH) occurs frequently and across contexts during adolescence. The current study examined the relations among PSH in school, psychological distress, sexual experimentation, and sexual risk-taking in a sample of African American middle and high school girls. Results indicate that negative body appraisals mediated the relationship between PSH and psychological distress, suggesting that PSH is one way to operationalize interpersonal sexualization and sexual objectification. PSH was directly associated with sexual experimentation, but the association between PSH and sexual experimentation was not mediated by negative body appraisals. Neither PSH nor negative body appraisals were related to sexual risk-taking. This suggests that frequent exposure to high levels of sexualization and sexual objectification, in the form of PSH, is associated with more psychological distress and sexual experimentation, but not with sexual risk-taking, regardless of how girls feel about their bodies.

Youth in Western countries are exposed to many messages that sexualize women. We selectively review the literature on sexualization with the goal of clarifying and integrating theories, constructs, and models of the pathways and mechanisms via which exposure to such messages may affect youth. In the first section of the article, we define sexualization and discuss historical change concerning the construct. In the second section, we highlight the role that core values concerning sexuality and gender play in designing and interpreting research on sexualization. In the third section, we provide a conceptual analysis of the various psychological constructs related to sexualization, noting their roots in particular theories. In the fourth section, we discuss developmental issues and, in fifth and sixth sections, we present conceptual models of the antecedents and consequences of believing that sexual attractiveness to men is an important aspect of the female gender role among girls and boys, respectively.

An emerging literature suggests that females are more likely than males to take and post selfies and that such selfies tend to both conform to and legitimize the sexualization of femininity. It has been found that key predictors of selfie behaviors are narcissistic personality traits and that taking a higher number of selfies may, in turn, put young people at risk of engaging in negative social interactions online. No studies to date have investigated the mediating effects of selfies and, moreover, selfies that are taken with the intention of to appear physically attractive (i.e., sexualized selfies), on the relationship between narcissism and cyber behaviors. The following study examined selfie taking among a group of 262 adolescent girls (aged 13–16). Results of a path model found a serial mediation effect, indicating that exploitativeness was associated with increased selfie taking, which increased sexualized selfie taking and in turn increased cyber aggression and victimization. In contrast, contingent self-esteem was associated with taking sexualized selfies (with indirect positive effects on cyber behaviors). Results of this model also show that the effect of taking selfies on cyber behaviors is fully mediated by taking sexualized selfies. These findings are discussed in relation to the characteristics of the online environment and the risks of young women’s sexualized online self-presentations.

Sexualized gender stereotypes (SGS) include the belief that girls should singularly prioritize their sexualized attractiveness for the attention and approval of boys. By elementary school, boys and girls perceive girls’ sexualized attractiveness to be incompatible with intelligence and competence. In the current 2-year study, we examined whether girls’ higher SGS endorsement in seventh grade predicted a diminished mastery goal orientation and lower perceptions of academic ability in eighth grade and whether this was moderated by gender typicality and self-monitoring. Cross-lagged panel analyses tested whether earlier academic attitudes better predicted later SGS endorsement than the inverse. The study included 77 girls in the final sample from four public middle schools ( MageT1 = 12.4, SD = .57). The sample was ethnically diverse (45% identified as White, 21% as Latinx, 19% as Black/African American, and 14% as multiracial). Girls’ greater endorsement of SGS in the seventh grade predicted lower academic self-efficacy later, controlling for age, academic ability, and earlier levels of academic attitudes. Highlighting a likely feedback loop, earlier academic self-efficacy equally predicted later SGS endorsement. For highly gender-typical girls, greater SGS endorsement also predicted lower mastery goal orientation over time.