Girls as young as age six are identifying themselves as sex objects according to a new study published in the in the journal, Sex Roles.
Similar to CNN anchor Anderson Cooper’s race studies, which tested how kids viewed racial beliefs and attitudes, psychologists at Knox College in Galesburg, Ill., assessed a group of 6 to 9 year old girls by using a paper doll method.
Sixty girls were shown two dolls, one dressed in tight and revealing “sexy” clothes and the other wearing a trendy but covered-up, loose outfit.
Each girl was asked a series of questions: To choose the doll that looked most like her, to choose the doll who looked how she wanted to look, to choose which was popular in school, and to choose whom she wanted to play with.
68 percent of girls said the doll looked how she wanted to look, and 72 percent said she was more popular than the non-sexy doll.
Among different factors that researchers Gail Ferguson and Christy Starr examined were the girls’ background, the school they came from, were they involved in dance lessons, the amount of media that they consumed, and whether or not religious beliefs played a factor.
Starr notes that she studied the girls’ mothers as well, as mothers can play a vital role in how they navigate their daughter’s body images.
“We found that in actuality, mothers are key players in whether or not their daughters sexualize themselves. Moms can help their daughters navigate a sexualizing world by instructing their daughters about their values and by not demonstrating objectified and sexualized behaviors themselves.”
Read more about it here.
