The Objectified Body Consciousness Scale: Article

Psychology of Women Quarterly, 20 (1996),181-215. Printed in the United States of America.
FEATURED ARTICLE
THE OBJECTIFIEDBODY
CONSCIOUSNESS SCALE
Development and Validation
Nita Mary McKinley

University of Wisconsin-Platteville
Janet Shibley Hyde

University of Wisconsin-Madison
Using feminist theory about the social construction of the female body,
a scale was developed and validated to measure objectified body con-
sciousness (OBC) in young women ( N = 502) and middle-aged women
( N = 151). Scales used were (a) surveillance (viewing the body as an
outside observer), (b) body shame (feeling shame when the body does
not conform), and (c) appearance control beliefs. The three scales were
demonstratedto be distinct dimensions with acceptable reliabilities. Sur-
veillance and body shame correlated negatively with body esteem. Con-
trol beliefs correlated positively with body esteem in young women and
were related to frequency of restricted eating in all samples. All three
scales were positively related to disordered eating. The relationship of
OBC to women's body experience i s discussed.
Because negative feelings toward their bodies take a heavy toll on women's
economic, personal, and political lives (Wolf, 1991), body experience is
This research is part of a study completed for the dissertation of the first author in partial
fulfillment of the requirements for the Ph.D. degree. We acknowledge the help of Sharon
Bohnen, Dava Schub, Angela Jaszczak, and Mary Beth King with data collection and data
management. Thanks to Susan Dottl, Jacque Padilla Carlson, Kristin King, and Ashby Plant,
and to Brandy Maszka for comments and support. Thanks to Mary McKinley and Mareena
McKinley Wright for support. We are also grateful to the many women who responded to
the surveys with enthusiasm and encouragement.
Address correspondenceand reprint requests to: Nita Mary McKinley, Dept. of Psychology,
University of Wisconsin-Platteville, 1 University Plaza, Platteville, WI, 53818. Email:
in%mckinley@uwplatt.edu.
P u b l i e d by Cambridge University Press 0361-6843196 $7.50 + .lo 181

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182 MCKINLEYAND HYDE
an important area for psychological research. The considerable volume of
body image research at this point typically indicates that women have
more negative body esteem than men (for example, Cash, Winstead, &
Janda, 1986; McCauley, Mintz, & Glenn, 1988; Mintz & Betz, 1986;
Sullivan & Harnish, 1983), although this gender difference is not always
found (for example, Cash & Brown, 1989; Silberstein, Striegel-Moore,
Timko, & Rodin, 1988). To explain women’s negative body experience,
researchers usually point to reasons such as gender roles or consumer and
media pressures (Rodin, Silberstein, & Striegel-Moore, 1985). Althqugh
these explanations provide a certain level of understanding, they do not
give us much information on how factors such as gender roles are trans-
lated into negative body experience.
Using a social construction perspective, feminist theorists have provided
a rich framework for understanding women’s body experience within U.S. 9
culture and how this contributes to negative body esteem (particularly,

Bartky, 1988; Spitzack, 1990). Rather than assuming that meaning is de-
termined and objective, social construction theorists study the meanings
that a given culture constructs. By examining these social “constructions”
of the feminine body, feminist theorists provide an explanation that shows
how negative body experience is accomplished in individual women in a
way that reference to “gender roles” and “media pressure” cannot.
This article reports on a scale developed from this social construction
framework that was designed to measure the behaviors and attitudes pro-
posed by feminist theorists to contribute to women’s negative body experi-
ence. Previous measures of women’s body experience typically have had
participants rate a list of body parts for how positively or negatively they
feel about each part (Berscheid, Walster, & Bohrnstedt, 1973; Franzoi &
Shields, 1984; Secord & Jourard, 1953). Cash and his colleagues (Cash et
al., 1986) used a multidimensional scale of body attitudes that measures
both body esteem and other factors such as the importance of appearance,
fitness, and health. To more accurately reflect women’s own attitudes,
Ben-Tovim and Walker (1991) developed a questionnaire based on factor
analyses of statements collected in interviews with women. While this
last assessment takes into account women’s own understanding of their
experience, none of these methods of studying body experience are theoret-
ically based, much less based on feminist theory. Additionally, this litera-
ture emphasizes the intrapersonal factors that are related to body experi-
ence, rather than the social context in which body experience takes place.
OBJECTIFIEDBODY CONSCIOUSNESS
According to feminist theorists, the feminine body is constructed as an

object “to be looked at” (Spitzack, 1990). Because of this construction,
women learn to view their bodies as if they were outside observers. They

Objectified Body Consciousness Scale 183
internalize cultural body standards so that the standards appear to origi-
nate from the self and believe that achieving these standards is possible,
even in the face of considerable evidence to the contrary. McKinley (1995)
called this experience of the body as an object and the beliefs that support
this experience objectified body consciousness (OBC). Higher levels of
OBC are theorized to lead to negative body experience for women. OBC
consists of three components that feminist theorists (Bartky, 1988; Spit-
zack, 1990) have argued are important in women’s body experience: (a)
body surveillance, (b) internalization of cultural body standards, and (c)
beliefs about appearance control.
Body Surveillance
The central tenet of OBC is that the feminine body is constructed as an

object of male desire and so exists to receive the gaze of the male “other”
(Spitzack, 1990). Constant self-surveillance, seeing themselves as others
see them, is necessary to ensure that women comply with cultural body
standards and avoid negative judgments. Women’s relationship to their
bodies becomes that of object and external onlooker; they exist as objects
to themselves. Women learn to associate body surveillance with self-love,
health, and individual achievement (Spitzack, 1990).
But constant self-surveillance has negative implications for women. Psy-
chological research has demonstrated that when we focus our attention on
ourselves and we are aware of standards for behavior, we compare our-
selves to that standard and try to reduce any discrepancy. If we cannot
reduce the discrepancy, we feel bad (Carver & Scheier, 1981). Experimen-
tal data also indicate that self-focus can make us more susceptible to influ-
ence by other people and reduces our capacity to focus on the outside
world (Carver & Scheier, 1981).
Internalization of Cultural Standards and Body Shame
Cultural body standards provide the ideal to which a woman compares

herself when she watches her body. Internalization of cultural body stan-
dards makes it appear as though these standards come from within the
individual woman and makes the achievement of these standards appear
to be a personal choice rather than a product of social pressure. Women
themselves want to be “beautiful.” When this desire is constructed as a
personal choice, women are more willing to conform than when they
believe the standards were externally imposed (Spitzack, 1990). However,
there are considerable economic and interpersonal pressures on women to
achieve a certain body type (Bartky, 1988; Rodin et al., 1985). Addition-
ally, giving women a limited choice between being “feminine” or “mascu-
line” makes the outcome of the decision certain (Bartky, 1988). According

184 MCKINLEY
AND HYDE
to Bartky, this “choice” connects the achievement of cultural body stan-
dards to a woman’s identity and makes it a potential source of personal
empowerment.
However, internalization of cultural body standards can also be a source
of intense shame (Bartky, 1988). Cultural standards for the feminine body
are virtually impossible to realize fully. For example, the body size that is
considered attractive has dropped farther and farther below the weight of
the average woman over the last few decades (Garner, Garfinkel,
Schwartz, & Thompson, 1980; Wiseman, Gray, Mosimann, & Ahrens,
1992). Genetic studies have shown that identical twins raised apart have
more similar body makeup than do fraternal twins raised together (Bray,
1981), suggesting that body type is genetically, rather than environmen-
tally, determined. Research has also demonstrated that body weight may
not be as amenable to change as doctors and the media suggest. Although
there is some controversy about the effectiveness of restricted eating (Ro-
din & Brownell, 1994), studies report that weight loss using current meth-
ods is poorly maintained in the long run (Wadden, Sternberg, Letizia,
Stunkard, & Foster, 1989; Wilson, 1994) and studies that report higher
maintenance rates show that maintenance decreases the longer the fol-
low-up period (Nunn, Newton, & Faucher, 1992). A thin body, perhaps
the most important current standard for attractiveness, is easiest for young
women to achieve. Normal biological milestones in women’s lives, such as
puberty, childbirth, and menopause, tend to make women gain weight
over their lifespan (Rodin et al., 1985). Other cultural standards represent
attributes that are most typical of young, middle- and upper middle-class,
European-American, heterosexual women (Brownmiller, 1984; Bordo,
1993; Sobal & Stunkard, 1989; Spitzack, 1990). Thus, these standards
may be difficult for most women to achieve.
Because cultural standards for the feminine body are virtually impossi-
ble to realize fully, women who internalize them, connecting achievement
of those standards with their identity, may feel shame when they do not
measure up. Shame may be a common emotion women feel in relation to
their bodies (Rodin et al., 1985). This shame is not simply negative feel-
ings about the body, but about the self. Bartky (1988) argued that the
amount of shame a women experiences toward her body is a measure of
the extent to which she has internalized cultural standards.
Responsibility for Appearance: Control Beliefs
OBC relies on an underlying assumption that women are responsible for

how their bodies look and can, given enough effort, control their appear-
ance and comply with cultural standards. Convincing women that they
are responsible for how they look is necessary to make them accept attrac-
tiveness as a reasonable standard by which to judge themselves (Wolf,

Objectified Body ConsciousnessScale 185
1991). Constructing the achievement of cultural body standards as a
choice encourages the belief that appearance can be controlled. Langer
(1975) showed that when certain skill cues, such as choice, are introduced
into a game of chance, people behave in a manner suggesting they believe
they can control the outcome of the situation.
Even though many aspects of appearance cannot be controlled, there
are some benefits to women in believing they can control their appear-
ance. Working to control appearance is one way women can resolve the
contradiction between being “feminine” and being instrumental (Rodin et
al., 1985; Mayer, 1983). Controlling appearance is a skill that gives
women a sense of competence that they do not easily give up (Bartky,
1988). When people believe they are in control, even when they are not,
their psychological and physical well-being is enhanced (Cromwell, But-
terfield, Branfield, & Curry, 1977; Gatchel & Proctor, 1976; Glass,
Singer, & Friedman, 1969; Taylor, 1989). This may be especially impor-
tant because cultural standards for body appearance are difficult or impos-
sible for many to attain. The illusion of control both helps people handle
extremely stressful situations and makes them persistent in pursuing their
goals (Taylor, 1989). Therefore, believing they can control their appear-
ance may relieve some of the stress for women that accompanies body
surveillance and the internalization of cultural body standards and may
provide more positive psychological outcomes.
Unfortunately, control beliefs may also encourage negative behaviors,
such as restricted eating. Restricted eating can damage health, can actu-
ally induce weight gain by changing metabolic processes, and may be the
most underrated cause of illness in Western society (Ernsberger &
Haskew, 1987). The inevitable regain of weight that follows food restric-
tion can increase the risk of diabetes, high blood pressure, and heart dis-
ease (Ernsberger & Haskew, 1987). Restricted eating may also be related
to disordered eating (Brumberg, 1988). In addition to these health effects,
restricted eating may have negative cognitive effects. Etaugh and Hall
(1989) found restricted eating to account for gender differences in a cogni-
tive task.
OBC and Women’s Body Experience
Objectified body consciousness, then, creates a situation in which a

woman has a contradictory relationship to her body. On the one hand, we
have seen behaviors such as loving the self through surveillance, “choos-
ing” cultural body standards, and acquiring appearance controlling skills
can appear to be positive, empowering experiences for women. On the
other hand, each of these behaviors also has negative consequences for
how a woman feels about her body and about herself. Without an under-
standing of OBC, we cannot fully understand women’s complex and con-

186 MCKINLEY
AND HYDE
tradictory feelings toward their bodies, nor can we begin to speculate on
how negative body experience can be changed.
MEASURING OBJECTIFIEDBODY CONSCIOUSNESS
We conducted a series of studies to develop and validate a scale to measure

the three aspects of objectified body consciousness (OBC): body surveil-
lance, internalization of cultural body standards, and beliefs about body
control. Internalization was measured by the amount of shame a woman
feels toward herself when she does not achieve cultural standards.
Other Relevant Scales
The Appearance Orientation scale of the Multidimensional Body-Self Re-

lations Questionnaire (MBSRQ) developed by Cash and his colleagues
(Brown, Cash, & Mikulka, 1990; Cash, 1994; Cash et al., 1986) measures
the importance of appearance and appearance-related actions. While this
scale has many items similar to those we used in our Surveillance Scale,
we wanted our scale to measure only watching the appearance or thinking
of the body in terms of looks. Miller, Murphy, and Buss (1981) developed
a scale of Public Body Consciousness, that is, being aware of the body as it
looks to an outside observer. While this scale is very similar to the con-
struct we were trying to measure, it refers to specific aspects of the body,
such as “hands” and “hair,” whereas we wanted a more general measure of
surveillance. Crandall’s (1994) Willpower Scale in their Antifat Attitudes
Measure contains items reflecting the belief that fat people are fat through
their own fault. Again, we wanted a more general scale of appearance
control, rather than one measuring only weight-related control beliefs.
We were unable to locate any scales that measured internalization of
cultural body standards or body shame.
The Current Study
In Study 1, undergraduate women were surveyed to develop the initial

OBC Scales. Young college women are a group at high risk for disturb-
ances related to body image (Wolf, 1991), which makes them an impor-
tant population to study for body experience. Young adulthood is the age
when both intimacy (Erikson, 1959) and achievement (Levinson, 1986)
are important and both of these may be related to body experience
(Bartky, 1988).
To provide further data on the scale, another sample of undergraduate
women and a sample of middle-aged women were surveyed in Study
2. Spitzack (1990) argued that the current greater appreciation for the

middle-aged woman extends the requirement for watching the body indef-
initely. This study examined whether the relationships between OBC,
body esteem, and restricted eating hold for middle-aged as well as young
women.
In Study 3, data were obtained from another sample of undergraduate
women to demonstrate further the validity and reliability of the OBC
scales. Additionally, the relationship between the OBC Scales and disor-
dered eating was explored. Depending on the study and criteria used,
between 3% and 21 % of young college women may report symptoms
consistent with eating disorders (Hesse-Biber, 1989; Mintz & Betz, 1988).
Brown (1993) argued that disordered eating cannot be understood outside
the cultural context in which it takes place. The OBC Scales, based on
social constructions of the “feminine body,” allowed us to explore how
objectified body consciousness might be related to disordered eating.
Together, these studies were intended to provide data on the psychomet-
ric properties of the OBC Scales (including reliability and validity), the
applicability of the scales to age groups other than undergraduate women,
and the relationship of objectified body consciousnessto disordered eating.
STUDY 1
The purpose of this study was to survey undergraduate women to develop

and validate the three OBC Scales: Surveillance, Body Shame, Appear-
ance Control Beliefs. The hypotheses were:
1. Surveillance and body shame should be positively correlated with each other
and negatively correlated with body esteem. Scrutinizing their bodies should
cause women to compare themselves to cultural norms, which arc difficult or
impossible to attain, leading to lower body esteem. Body shame should reflect
the extent to which cultural body standards have been internalized. The
more women have internalized these norms, the worse they feel about them-
selves. This should demonstrate the construct validity of the Surveillance and
Body Shame Scales.
2 . Control beliefs should distinguish restricted eaters from nonrestricted eaters
and should be correlated with other appearance-oriented practices, such as
wearing makeup and shaving. When a woman believes she can control her
appearance, she should engage in these appearance-controlling behaviors.
This should demonstrate the construct validity of the Control Beliefs Scale.
No predictions were made about the relationship of control beliefs to body
esteem, because this belief might either increase body esteem by reducing
anxiety or decrease body esteem by increasing surveillance and shame.
3. The Surveillance Scale should be related to public self-consciousness (focusing
on how one appears to others), but not to private self-consciousness (focusing
on internal processes) OT social anxiety. Public self-consciousness (Fenigstein,
Scheier, & Buss, 1975) is attention paid to the self as seen by other people.
Private self-consciousness,on the other hand, is attention to internal processes

188 MCKlNLEY AND HYDE
of the self, and social anxiety is anxiety felt in social situations. Surveillance,
watching the body as an outside observer, should be conceptually related to
public self-consciousness (construct validity), but should be distinct from
private self-consciousnessand social anxiety (discriminant validity).
METHOD
Participants
Participants were 121 undergraduate women. They were recruited from

introductory psychology classes and also from a child development class
and a human sexuality class. The students in the introductory psychology
class received extra credit for participation. The mean age was 20.0 years
(SD = 3.61; range 17 to 39 years). The women were European American
(85.1%),African American (2.5%), Asian American (4.1%), Hispanic
(0.8% ), and Native American (0.8% ). Foreign students accounted for
2.5% of the sample, and 4.1% did not indicate their ethnicity. The
women were 96.7 % heterosexual, 1.7% lesbian, and 1.7% bisexual.
Measures
Participants completed surveys including, among other measures, demo-

graphic information, the OBC Scales, and a body esteem scale. The mea-
sures of interest are described below.
Objectified Body Consciousness Scale. In pilot work with undergradu-
ate women, items were developed to measure the three aspects proposed
to make up objectified body consciousness. From theory based primarily
on arguments made by Spitzack (1990), the first author wrote the defini-
tions for each of the three subscales. A high scorer on the Surueillance
Scale would watch her body frequently and would think of her body in
terms of how it looks, rather than how it feels. A high scorer on the Body
Shame Scale would believe she is a bad person if she does not fulfill
cultural expectations for her body. This presumably would be a reflection
of her internalization of cultural body standards. A high scorer on the
Control Beliefs Scale would believe that she can control her weight and
her appearance if she works hard enough. This contrasts with the low
scorer who would believe that weight and appearance are controlled by
factors such as heredity.
The first author then wrote items based on these definitions and on data
collected in detailed interviews with nine undergraduate women. These
items therefore were derived from two sources: feminist theory and the
experiences of individual women. The scales included 16 surveillance
items, 16 control beliefs, and 37 shame/internalization items. Approxi-
mately half of the items on each scale represented low levels of the dimen-
Objectified Sody ConsciousnessScale 189
sion and half represented high levels. Participants responded on a 6-point
scale ranging from strongly agree to strongly disagree. They could also
circle NA if that item did not apply to them. This last option was necessary
because items on the Body Shame Scale, such as “When I can’t control my
weight, I feel like something must be wrong with me,” would not be
applicable to a participant who was successful in controlling her weight.
Body Esteem Scale (BES). Participants completed the Body Esteem
Scale (BES; Franzoi & Shields, 1984). This scale lists 35 aspects of the
body, including items like physical stamina and sexual activities. Partici-
pants rated each item on a 5-point scale from have strong negative feelings
to have strong positive feelings. Although Franzoi and Shields (1984)
found that the BES had three factors for women, the BES was summed for
a single score, following Silberstein et al. (1988). They found the total
BES score to be highly correlated with the weight concern ( r = .82) and
the physical condition (T = .74) subscales for women and moderately
correlated with the sexual attractiveness subscale ( T = .57). In the current
set of data, the internal consistency (a)for the total BES was .93, suggest-
ing that this scale provides a reliable measure as a single summed score.
Restricted eating and other appearance control behaviors. Partici-
pants indicated how often they dieted on a 5-point scale from never to
almost always or always. In the interviews conducted prior to this study,
undergraduate women often said that they do not diet, but rather they cut
back on what they eat. For that reason, an item was included asking “How
often do you restrict what you eat to control or maintain your weight?”
Participants also indicated if they were currently dieting or restricting
their intake or if they had done so in the past 6 months.
In addition to restricted eating, participants indicated on a 5-point scale
from never to almost always or always how often they shave, wear
makeup, wear nail polish, perm, dye, or bleach their hair, wear clothes to
make them look thinner, or exercise to shape the body or control weight.
Public/Private Self-Consciousness Scales. Fenigstein, Scheier, and
Buss (1975) developed these scales to differentiate between public self-
consciousness, private self-consciousness, and social anxiety. Examples of
these items are “I usually worry about making a good impression” and
“I’m always trying to figure myself out” for Public and Private Self-
Consciousness Scales, respectively. The Social Anxiety Scale includes items
such as “I get embarrassed very easily.” Fenigstein et al. showed that these
scales are factorially sound, have good test-retest reliability, and good
discriminant validity.
Procedure
Women and men were asked to participate in a study concerning how
people feel about themselves and their bodies. They completed the surveys
in same-sex groups of sizes varying from 1 to 8 or they took the survey

190 MCKINLEY
AND HYDE
home and returned it when they had completed it. Scale items appeared
in random order on the survey questionnaire. In all groups, surveys were
administered or participants recruited by a European-American female
researcher of middle age.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Factor Analysis
Examination of the scree plot of eigenvalues (Cattell, 1966) for the 69

items intended to measure surveillance, body shame, and control beliefs
suggested three factors. These OBC items were factor analyzed using a
common factor analysis, three factors, and an oblimin rotation. The fac-
tors obtained represented the three predicted dimensions: a surveillance
dimension, a control dimension, and a shame dimension. Items that did
not load on the three factors or that loaded on the wrong factor were
dropped, yielding 24 items, eight on each scale. These 24 items were factor
analyzed, using a common factor analysis, three factors, and an oblimin
rotation. All items then loaded on the appropriate scale, demonstrating
the OBC Scales consist of the three predicted dimensions and that scruti-
nizing the body, body shame, and believing appearance can be controlled
are important and distinct aspects of women’s body experience. Table 1
shows these items and their factor loadings. The remaining analyses in-
clude these items only.
Reliability of the OBC Scales
Items that represented a low scorer on each scale were reverse scored. If
participants indicated that an item was not applicable or if they did not
answer an item, that item was counted as missing. Scores were calculated
for participants on each scale by adding the responses for the items in each
scale and dividing by the number of nonmissing items. An individual’s
scale score was considered missing if more than 25% of the items for a
given scale were missing (that is, the participant did not respond or an-
swered not applicable). The Body Shame Scale was missing for nine
women for this reason. All women responded to six or more items on the
Surveillance and Control Beliefs Scales. The internal consistencies (a)of
the OBC Scales were moderate to high: Surveillance Scale, .89; Body
Shame Scale, .75; and Control Beliefs Scale, .72. Descriptive statistics for
the OBC Scales and the BES are shown in Table 2.

Table 1
Objectified Body Consciousness Scales and Factor Loadings: Study 1
Factor I Factor 2 Factor 3
Item Body Shame Control Beliefs Surveillance
Surveillance Scale
1. I rarely think about .28 .10 - .59
how I look. *
2. I think it is more im- - .15 .03 - .a4
portant that my
clothes are comfortable
than whether they look
good on me. *
3. I think more about .06 -.lo - .82
how my body feels
than how my body
looks. *
4. I rarely compare how I .04 .09 - .73
look with how other
people look. *
5 . During the day, I - -41 - .07 .47
think about how I look
many times.
6. I often worry about - .23 .02 .58
whether the clothes I
am wearing make me
look good.
7. I rarely worry about .04 .11 - .71
how I look to other
people. *
8 I am more concerned .21 - .04 - .58
with what my body can
do than how it looks. a
Body Shame Scale
9. When I can’t control .69 - .02 - .26
my weight, I feel like
something must be
wrong with me.
10. I feel ashamed of my- .60 - .02 - .33
self when 1 haven’t
made the effort to look
my best.
11. I feel like I must be a .85 - .20 .00
bad person when I
don’t look as good as I
could.
12. I would be ashamed .50 .15 - .04
for people to know
what I really weigh.
(Continued)

192 A N D HYDE
MCKINLEY
Table 1
Continued

13. I never worry that - .71 - .12 - -12
something is wrong
with me when I am
not exercising as much
as I should. *
14. When I’m not exercis- .80 .06 .06
ing enough, I question
whether I am a good
enough person.
15. Even when I can’t con- - .72 .18 .20
trol my weight, I think
I’m an okay person. *
16. When I’m not the size .62 .01 - .30
I think I should be, I
feel ashamed.
Control Scale
17. I think a person is - .27 - .66 .03
pretty much stuck with
the looks they are born
with. *
18. A large part of being in .28 - .52 -.lo
shape is having that
kind of body in the
first place. *
19. I think a person can .08 .62 .32
look pretty much how
they want to if they
are willing to work at
it.
20. I really don’t think I .15 - .72 .18
have much control
over how my body
looks.*
21. I think a person’s - .13 - .72 .00
weight is mostly deter-
mined by the genes
they are born with. *
22. It doesn’t matter how - .10 - .53 .24
hard I try to change
my weight, it’s proba-
bly always going to be
about the same. *

Table 1
Continued
23. I can weigh what I'm - .19 .48 - .30
supposed to when I try
hard enough.
24. The shape you are in - .04 - .68 .02
depends mostly on
your genes. *
Note: 'Reverse score item. Criteria for including on scale: .40. Items are rated on a scale from (1) strongly
disogree to (7) strongly agree.
Validity of the OBC Scales
The correlations between the OBC Scales and body esteem are shown in
Table 2. For female participants, surveillance had a negative correlation
with body esteem. There was a strong positive correlation between surveil-
lance and body shame and a moderate positive correlation between sur-
veillance and control beliefs. Body shame had a strong negative correla-
tion with body esteem. Body shame and control beliefs had a small positive
correlation. This supports Hypothesis 1by showing that both surveillance
and body shame are negatively related to body esteem and demonstrates
that these scales are valid measures that are consistent with the argument
that surveillance and internalization of cultural body standards contribute
to negative body esteem for women. Lower body esteem may also make
women watch their bodies more. There were significant relationships be-
tween the three scales and, although control beliefs were not significantly
related to body esteem, they were positively related to both surveillance
Table 2
Descriptive Statistics and Correlations for the OBC Scales,
and Body Esteem: Study 1
Correlations
~
Body ControE
Measure M (SD) Surveillance Shame Beliefs
Surveillance 4.22 (.91)

Body Shame 3.25 (1.04) .66** *
Control Beliefs 3.93 ( .70) .30** .23*
Body Esteem 3.18 (.60) -.39*** -.51*** -.16
Note: N = 108;* p < .05;* * p < .01; * * * p < ,001.

and body shame. This is consistent with the argument that objectified
body consciousness depends on the underlying belief that appearance can
be controlled.
To test the construct validity of the Control Beliefs Scale, a one-way
ANOVA was used, dividing the women into a nonrestricted eating group
and a group that reported either currently restricting their intake or had
in the last 6 months, and using the Control Beliefs Scale as the dependent
variable. As expected, the results showed that women in the restricted
eating group believed more strongly that they could control how their
body looks ( M = 4.03, SD = .74) than women in the nonrestricted
eatinggroup (M = 3.70, SD = .50), F(1,119) = 6.38, p < .02. Theef-
fect size for this difference was moderate (d = .49). Control beliefs corre-
lated positively with dieting, ~ ( 1 0 9 )= .38, p < .001, restricted eating,
(109) = .35, p < .001, exercising to control weight, ~ ( 1 0 9 )= .36, p <
.001, wearing makeup, ~ ( 1 0 9 )= .22, p < .05, and wearing clothes to
look thinner, ~ ( 1 0 9 )= .19, p < .05. Control beliefs were not signifi-
cantly correlated with shaving, using nail polish, or perming or dying
hair. These findings partially support Hypothesis 2 and demonstrate
that control beliefs are an important factor in appearance control behav-
iors.
To further validate the Surveillance Scale, correlations between this
scale and the Self-Consciousness Scales of Fenigstein et al. (1975) were
examined for the female participants. Surveillance correlated strongly
with public self-consciousness, T ( 112) = .73, p < .001, but had no signif-
icant relationship with either private self-consciousness or social anxiety.
This demonstrates the conceptual relatedness of surveillance and public
self-consciousness(convergent validity), as well as its distinction from both
attention paid to the internal aspects of the self and social anxiety (discrim-
inant validity).
STUDY 2
The purpose of Study 2 was to conduct a confirmatory factor analysis of

the Surveillance, Body Shame, and Control Beliefs Scales in a sample of
undergraduate women and in a sample comprised of the middle-aged
mothers of some of those women. By using the mothers of the undergradu-
ate women, we were able to study two groups matched for factors such as
ethnicity and class. Study 2 also assessed replicability of the relationships
between the OBC Scales and body esteem found in Study 1. The sample of
middle-aged women allowed us to investigate whether objectified body
consciousness is a phenomenon of young women only, or whether it also
reflects the experience of middle-aged women. The first hypothesis was:

1. The relationships between surveillance, body shame, control beliefs, and
body esteem should be the same as those for young women.
This study also tested further the relationship of the Body Shame Scale
to internalization of cultural body standards for young women and mid-
dle-aged women. Items were added to assess how closely participants’
personal standards for their appearance matched cultural standards of
appearance. This test was important to demonstrate the construct validity
of the Body Shame Scale as a measure of the internalization of cultural
body standards. The second hypothesis was:
2 . The more strongly a woman endorses cultural body standards as her own
personal standards, the higher her body shame score should be.
METHOD
Participants
Participants were undergraduate women and the middle-aged mothers of

some of these women. The undergraduates consisted of 278 women, aged
17 to 22 years ( M = 18.41, SD = .72). They were volunteers from intro-
ductory psychology classes and earned extra credit for completing the
study. These women were 1.8% African American, 2.9% Asian Ameri-
can, 90.2% European American, . 7 % Hispanic, 2.5% Native American,
and 1.1 % bi- or multiracial. Two women indicated other for ethnicity
and three women did not indicate their ethnicity. This sample was 96.4 %
heterosexual, 2.5 % lesbian, and 1.1% bisexual.
The middle-aged sample consisted of the mothers of the subsample of
undergraduate women who provided their mothers’ names and addresses.
Surveys were mailed to 200 mothers and 151 of these were returned. There
were no differences on any of the OBC Scales, body esteem, or mother’s
approval between the undergraduates who did not give permission, the
undergraduates who gave permission and their mothers did not return the
survey, and the undergraduates who gave permission and their mothers
did return the survey. The mothers ranged in age from 38 to 58 years
( M = 46.32, SD = 4.13). They were 97.3% European American, 2.7%
Native American, 1.4% Asian American, and 1.4 % African American.
Three women did not indicate their ethnicity. This sample was 93.2%
heterosexual, 2.5 % lesbian, and 4.1 % bisexual. Three women did not
indicate their sexual orientation.

Measures
Participants completed a battery of measures, including the OBC Scales

and the Body Esteem Scale (Franzoi & Shields, 1984), and indicated their
weight, height, and their restricted eating frequency as in Study 1. The
rating scale for the OBC items was changed slightly and a set of items was
included to explore the relationship between internalization of cultural
body standards and body shame. These changes are discussed below.
OBC Scales. The scale for the OBC items was changed to a 7-point
scale ranging from strongly agree to strongly disagree so that a middle
anchor point of neither agree nor disagree could be added. Respondents
could also circle NA if that item did not apply to them. This middle
point and the option of NA were important because, rather than forcing
participants to either agree or disagree with an item, they allowed partici-
pants to report either feeling “neutral” about an item or that an item did
not apply to their experience.
Cultural personal standards. To compare participants’ understanding
of cultural appearance standards with their personal endorsement of those
standards, the first author wrote a series of items following the method of
Devine, Monteith, Zuwerink, and Elliot (1991) in assessing people’s atti-
tudes toward homosexuals. Participants first indicated on a 7-point scale
from strongly disagree to strongly agree whether, according to society’s
standards, they should be upset when they gain weight, when a certain
clothing style doesn’t look good on them, and if they were not thin; and
whether they should not be upset when they don’t look their best or when
they have eaten a large meal. These five items were designed to represent
two aspects of cultural standards for women’s appearance: weight concern
and general appearance concern. The last two items were reverse-scored
and the sum of these ratings was used as a measure of the participants’
understanding of cultural standards. This Cultural Standards Scale had
adequate reliability, indicating that the items could be used as a single
summed scale (coefficient a! = .74 and .75 for young women and middle-
aged women, respectively). After responding to these items, participants
responded to a set of items that asked the same questions according to
their own personal standards, yielding a personal endorsement score. The
Personal Endorsement Scale had adequate reliability, indicating that these
items could be used as a single summed scale (coefficient CY = .75 and .69,
for young women and middle-aged women, respectively).
Procedure
Young and middle-aged women were asked to participate in a study about

how they feel about themselves and their bodies. The young women com-
pleted surveys in groups of one to eight. Three research assistants adminis-

Objectified Body ConsciousnessScale 197
tered these surveys. All were European American undergraduate women.
Surveys were mailed to the middle-aged women, who completed them at
home and retiimed them in postage-paid envelopes.
RESULTS A N D DISCUSSION
Confirmatory Factor Analysis
To determine the goodness of fit of the three-factor structure of the OBC

Scales, a confirmatory factor analysis was performed using Lisre17.2 (Jor-
eskog & Sorbom, 1989). Three models were compared for the young wom-
en's data and the middle-aged women's data: (a) the proposed three-factor
model, (b) a single-factor model, and ( c ) a two-factor model with the
body shame and surveillance items as indicators of one latent factor and
the control items as indicators of a second latent factor. If the single-factor
model were the best fitting, it would suggest that the three scales are
simply indicators of a single latent variable having to do with appearance.
Because surveillance and body shame were strongly correlated in Study 1,
the two-factor model was tested to determine if these scales are indicators
of a single underlying latent variable.
Within each scale, items were randomly parceled into four summed
items for this analysis. Parceling has been utilized previously because a
large number of indicators may increase the probability of chance covari-
ance among indicators, increase random measurement error, and increase
systematic measurement error due to factors such as items containing simi-
lar wording, but not similar meaningful content (West, Finch, & Curran,
1995; Wetter et al., 1994). Each of the 12 parceled indicators, then, was
constrained to load on a single factor. The young women's analysis utilized
the data of the subsample of daughters (young women whose mothers
returned the surveys) who had no missing items on the OBC Scales ( N =
113). Because a given data set can never be expected to fit a model per-
fectly, a large sample size can cause an otherwise good-fitting model to be
rejected (Coovert, Penner, & MacCallum, 1990); this sample size of
around 100 is therefore good. For the middle-aged women, 126.who had
no missing data were included in the sample. The x' and goodness-of-fit
indicators are shown in Table 3.' For the young women, the x 2 for the
three-factor model was not significant. Thus, this model was a good fit for
the data. Both the x' for the single-factor and the two-factor model were
significant, indicating a poor fit. The goodness-of-fit indices also show
that the three-factor model fit the data better than these two other models.
To test whether the three-factor model was significantly better fitting than
the three-factor or single-factor models, the differences between the x 'for
the three-factor model and the x' for each of the other two models were
examined (Coovert et al., 1990). The difference x 2 for the three- and

Table 3
Chi-square and Goodness-of-Fit Indices for Confirmatory
Factor Analysis of OBC Scales: Study 2
~~ ~ ~
Model X2 df GFI AGFI
Young women (N = 113)

3-factor model 63.03 51 .92 .87
%factormodel 119.42*** 53 .83 .75
l-factor model 187.88*'* 54 .75 .64
Middle-agedwomen (N = 126)
3-factor model 68.91' 51 .92 -88
2-factor model 130.78*** 53 .84 .76
l-factor model 258.27*** 54 .70 .57
Note: * p < .05; * * * p < ,001; GFI = goodnes-of-fit index (Tanaka & Huba, 1984); AGFI =
goodnes-of-fit index adjusted for df (Tanaka & Huba, 1984); a nonsignificant x 2 indicates the pre-
dicted model is a good fit to the data.
two-factor models was significant, ~ ' ( 2 N , = 113) = 56.39, p < .001.

The difference x' for the three- and single-factor models was also signifi-
, = 113) = 124.85, p < .001. Thus, the three-factor model
cant, ~ ' ( 3 N
was a significantly better fit to the data than either the two-factor or
single-factor model, and it can be concluded that the three OBC Scales
represent three different latent constructs.
For the middle-aged women, the x 2 for all three models were signifi-
cant, indicating the estimated covariance matrix was significantly differ-
ent from the sample matrix and a poor fit. However, because this index is
sensitive to sample size, the goodness-of-fitindices were compared to see if
the three-factor model fit the data better than the single- and two-factor
models. To test this, the differences between the x 2 for the three-factor
model and the 'x for each of the other two models were examined (Coo-
vert et al., 1990). The difference x 2 for the three- and two-factor models
was significant, ~ ' ( 2 ,N = 126) = 56.39, p < .001. The difference x'
for the three- and single-factor models was also significant, ~ ' ( 3 N
, =
126) = 124.85, p < .001. Thus, the three-factor model was a signifi-
cantly better fit to the data than either the two-factor or single-factor
model and it can be concluded that the three OBC Scales represent three
different latent constructs.
Reliability of OBC Scales
The participants' scores for each of the three OBC Scales were calculated
using the same method as in Study 1. The internal consistencies (a)of the
OBC Scales were: Surveillance Scale, .79 and .76; Body Shame Scale, .84
and .70; and Control Beliefs Scale, .68 and .76, for undergraduates and
middle-aged women, respectively.

Validity of the OBC Scales
Surveillance had a moderate negative correlation with body esteem for

young women, ~ ( 2 6 1 )= -.27, p < .001, whereas for middle-aged
women, there was no significant relationship between surveillance and
body esteem, r( 149) = - .lo, m. There were strong positive correlations
between surveillance and body shame for both young women, r(261) =
.48, p < .001, and middle-aged women, r(149) = .39, p < .001. Body
shame had a strong negative correlation with body esteem for both young
women, ~ ( 2 6 1 )= -.46, p < .001, and middle-aged women, r(149) =
- .38, p < .001. Control beliefs had a small to large positive correlation
with body esteem for young women, ~ ( 2 6 1 )= .14, p < .05, and middle-
aged women, r(149) = .34, p < .001. These relationships are similar to
those found in Study 1with the exception that surveillance was not signifi-
cantly related to body esteem for middle-aged women. Partially consistent
with Hypothesis 1, watching the body as an outside observer had negative
relationships to body esteem only for young women, while believing one is
a bad person if cultural standards are not achieved was consistently nega-
tively related to body esteem for both groups. Control beliefs were not
significantly related to either surveillance or body shame, but had a signif-
icant relationship with body esteem. This is consistent with the argument
that women who believe they can control their appearance feel more
positive regard for their bodies. It may also be that women whose bodies
more closely approximate cultural standards both feel better about their
bodies and believe they can control their appearance.
A one-way ANOVA, dividing the participants into a nonrestricted
eating group and a group that reported either currently restricting their
intake or having done so in the last 6 months and using the Control Beliefs
Scale as the dependent variable showed no differences in the two groups
for undergraduates or middle-aged women, F(l, 275) = 1.76, ns, and
F(1, 150) = 3 4 , m. Of the eight self-presentation behaviors, control be-
liefs were significantly positively correlated with exercising to control
weight only for both young women, ~ ( 2 7 4 )= .29, p < ,001, and middle-
aged women, ~ ( 1 4 3 )= .21, p < .05. Thus, this test of the construct va-
lidity of the Control Beliefs Scale found that the control beliefs did not
predict restricted eating or other self-presentation behaviors. Although
this could indicate that this scale is not a valid measure of control beliefs,
at least two other factors could cause this: (a) there is a more complex
relationship between control beliefs and these behaviors, or (b) restricted
eating is so normative in these groups that there was restricted variability
on these measures. These hypotheses are examined next.
Because only the zero-order correlation between exercising to control
weight and control beliefs was significant, two regressions were performed
to further explore the relationship between control beliefs and restricted
eating, using dieting frequency and restricted eating frequency as criterion

200 MCKINLEY
AND HYDE
variables and controlling for participants’ self-reported body mass index
(BMI is weight (kg) divided by height’ (m)). For young women, BMI
accounted for 8 % of the variance in dieting frequency, multiple R(257)
= .28, p < .001, and 4 % of variance in frequency of restricted eating,
multiple R(259) = .21, p < .001. The OBC Scales accounted for an ad-
ditional 28% of the variance in dieting, multiple R(257) = .60, p <
,001, and 26% of the variance in restricted eating, multiple R(259) =
.55, p < .001. Control beliefs significantly contributed to additional vari-
ance for dieting (0= .12, p < .05) and for restricted eating (0= .14,
p < .01). Surveillance also accounted for significant variance in dieting
(0= .18, p < .01) and restricted eating ( p = .21, p < .001). Body
shame accounted for significant variance in dieting (0 = .42, p < .001)
and restricted eating (0= .37, p < .001). Thus, for young women, with
the variance for BMI controlled, higher control beliefs were associated
with increased dieting and restricted eating, demonstrating its construct
validity as a measure of control beliefs. Interestingly, body shame was the
greatest contributor to the variance in both dieting and restricted eating.
For middle-aged women, BMI did not account for significant variance
in either dieting frequency or frequency of restricted eating. Thus, a wom-
an’s size was not a significant factor in the frequency of the weight-
controlling behaviors. The OBC Scales accounted for a significant 10 % of
the variance in dieting, multiple R(146) = .34, p < .01, but no signifi-
cant variance in restricted eating. Control beliefs significantly contributed
to this variance for dieting (0= .19, p < .05). Neither surveillance nor
body shame accounted for a significant portion of this variance. Control
beliefs, then, were associated with increased dieting only.
We wanted to examine the frequency of restricted eating responses and
dieting to determine if restricted variability might account for the lack of
significant correlation between these measures and control beliefs. For
young women, 18.0% and 25.2% reported dieting never or rarely. Only
11.5% reported that they never restricted eating, and another 19.1%
rarely restricted their eating. For middle-aged women, 10.6% never di-
eted, and 23.2% rarely did. Only 5.3% of middle-aged women never
restricted their eating and only another 12.6% rarely did. So, although
fewer women in each group reported dieting than restricted eating, few of
each group reported never restricting their eating to maintain or control
their weight. This was especially true for the middle-aged women and
could account for the fact that even with body size controlled, control
beliefs failed to account for any significant variance in restricted eating.
Perhaps in this middle-aged group, restricted eating is so normative that it
is not related to control beliefs.
Because these two samples of women were not independent, we exam-
ined the correlations between the OBC scores of the middle-aged women
and the subsample of young women who were their daughters ( N = 151).
There were significant correlations between mothers’ and daughters’ sur-

Objectified Body ConsciousnessScale 20 1
veillance, r(139) = .26, p < .01, and body esteem, ~ ( 1 3 9 )= .23, p <
.01, but not for body shame, r( 139) = .06, m, or control beliefs, r( 139)
= -.Ol,m.
Validation of the Body Shame Scale as a Measure of

Internalization
To demonstrate the validity of body shame as a measure of internalization

of cultural body standards, participants’ responses to the culturallpersonal
standards items were examined. The percentage of participants who
agreed with each of the cultural standards items was examined (that is,
circled 5, 6, or 7 for each item “according to society’s standards”). This
would indicate that the women indeed believed that the items represented
cultural standards. For each of the items, more than half of the young
women agreed (gaining weight: 92.1%, N = 256; clothes style: 64.4%,
N = 179; not looking best: 82.6%,N = 230; eating a large meal: 79.9%,
N = 222; not being thin: 95.0 % , N = 264) and more than half of the
middle-aged women also agreed (gaining weight: 90.0%, N = 136;
clothes styles: 58.4%, N = 89; not looking best: 87.3%,N = 132; eating
a large meal: 68.6%,N = 104; not being thin: 90.6%, N = 135). This
was especially true for items dealing with weight, for which 90 % or more
of both groups of women agreed. There seems to be a consensus, then,
among these women that these items do represent cultural standards for
their appearance.
With the five items established as cultural standards, participants’
agreement with the items according to their personal standards (personal
endorsement) then could be analyzed to determine degree of internaliza-
tion of cultural standards, which could then be used to assess the validity
of body shame as a measure of internalization. The higher a participant’s
level of agreement with these items according their personal standards,
the higher her internalization of cultural standards, that is, the more her
own personal standards reflect cultural prescriptions for appearance. For
young women, personal endorsement correlated positively with body
shame, ~ ( 2 6 1 )= .51, p < ,001, and surveillance, r(261) = .43, p <
.001, and negatively with body esteem, r(261) = -.19, p < 0.1. For
middle-aged women, personal endorsement correlated positively with
body shame, ~ ( 1 4 6 )= .55, p < .001, and surveillance, ~ ( 1 4 6 )= .37,
p < .001, and negatively with body esteem, ~ ( 1 4 6 )= -.20, p < .01.
There was no significant relationship between control beliefs and personal
endorsement for either sample. The positive relationship between body
shame and personal endorsement supports Hypothesis 2 and validates
body shame as a measure of internalization; those whose personal stan-
dards were most like cultural standards had higher body shame. Body
shame was more strongly correlated with body esteem than was personal

202 AND HYDE
MCKINLEY
endorsement. Body shame may represent not simply personal endorsement
of cultural standards, but also the connection of one’s identity to achieving
those standards, and thus body shame may be the better measure of inter-
nalization.
STUDY 3
In this study, the reliability of the OBC Scales was further established by
administering the scales to another sample of undergraduate women at a
2-week interval. Additionally, the relationships between the Surveillance
and Control Beliefs Scales and other similar scales were examined. The
Surveillance Scale is similar to the Appearance Orientation Scale on the
Multidimensional Body-Self Relations Questionnaire (MBSRQ) developed
by Cash and his colleagues (Cash, 1994; Cash et al., 1986) and the Public
Body Consciousness Scale developed by Miller, Murphy, and Buss (1981).
The Appearance Orientation Scale is a measure of the importance a person
places on appearance and the action taken in relation to appearance (e.g,
“I am always trying to improve my appearance”). The Surveillance Scale
is intended to measure only how much a person watches her or his body,
but because of the similarity between the importance items of the Appear-
ance Orientation Scale and the Surveillance Scale, we wanted to compare
the two scales. The scale by Miller et al. measures public body conscious-
ness of specific body parts. We wanted to demonstrate that, although this
scale is related to our scale, the more general Surveillance Scale should be
more predictive of body experience.
The Control Beliefs Scale is intended to be a measure of beliefs about
the controllability of the appearance in general. However, it could be
argued that it is a measure of weight control beliefs because five of the
eight items are concerned with weight or shape. To provide support that
the Control Beliefs Scale measures general appearance control beliefs, the
relationship between this scale and Crandall’s (1994) Willpower Scale
in their Antifat Attitudes Questionnaire was examined. Crandall’s scale
contains items reflecting the belief that fat people are fat through their
own fault and, thus, is a more specific weight control scale.
The hypotheses were:
1. The Surveillance Scale should have a strong correlation with both the Ap-
pearance Orientation Scale and the Public Body Consciousness Scale. This
test of construct validity should demonstrate that these scales measure differ-
ent, but closely related constructs.
2 . The Control Beliefs Scale should have only a moderate correlation with the
Willpower Scale. This would demonstrate, that although these two scales are
related, they do not measure identical constructs.
Finally, the relationship between the OBC Scales and disordered eating
was examined. Although the previous studies demonstrated the relation-

ship between objectified body consciousness and restricted eating, they do
not demonstrate whether this type of consciousness is related to disordered
eating, an important correlate of body dissatisfaction (for example, Fa-
bian & Thompson, 1989; Zakin, 1989). Most studies of eating disorders
focus on the individual characteristics that are associated with eating dis-
orders (for example, Fabian & Thompson, 1989; Laessle, Kittl, Fichter, &
Pirke, 1988; Strauman, Vookles, Berenstein, Chaiken, & Higgins, 1991).
Fewer have studied the cultural pressures for certain eating behaviors
in women (for example, Mori, Chaiken, 81 Pliner, 1987). The current
prevalence and patterns of eating disorders are phenomena tied to a par-
ticular culture and time in history (Brown, 1992; Vandereycken & van
Deth, 1990). We must address this interaction of culture and behavior
to fully understand eating disorders. Objectified body consciousness, by
emphasizing the current social construction of the female body, could
be particularly useful, then, in understanding eating disorders from this
perspective. Our hypotheses concerning the relationship of the OBC Scales
to disordered eating were:
3 . Surveillance and body shame should be positively correlated with disordered
eating. To the extent that a woman watches her body as an outside observer
and has internalized cultural body standards, she should be more likely to
engage in behaviors associated with eating disorders in an attempt to achieve
cultural body standards and feel good about herself.
4. Control beliefs should be positively correlated with disordered eating. The
previous two studies have demonstrated that restricted eating is related to
control beliefs in young women. Presumably it should also be related to these
weight control attitudes and behaviors.
5. Women who are identijied as “at-risk”foreating disorders should have higher
levels of surveillance, body shame, and control beliefs than women who have
lower levels of disordered eating. Women who are identified as “at-risk for
eating disorders may objectify their bodies more than other groups of women
and this would be reflected in increased surveillance and body shame. They
may particularly believe they can control their appearance.
METHOD
Participants
Participants were 103 undergraduate women aged 18 to 21 years ( M =

18.75, SD = .74) recruited from introductory psychology classes and
given course credit for participation. They were European American
(92.2%), African American (1.9%), Asian American (1.9%), Hispanic
(1.O% ) , and bi- or multiracial (1.O% ) . Two women did not indicate their
ethnicity. Ninety-seven percent of the women were heterosexual, 1.9 %
were lesbian, and 1.O% were bisexual. Eighty-one participants returned
for the second testing.

Measures
At the first testing session, the survey consisted of demographic informa-

tion, the OBC Scales, the Body Consciousness Questionnaire (BCQ;
Miller, Murphy, & Buss, 198l), and the Appearance Orientation Scale of
the Multidimensional Body-Self Relations Questionnaire (MBSRQ; Cash,
1994). At the second session, the survey consisted of the OBC Scales, the
Body Esteem Scale (Franzoi & Shields, 1984), the 26-item version of the
Eating Attitudes Test (Garner, Olmsted, Bohr, & Garfinkel, 1982), and
the Antifat Attitudes Questionnaire (Crandall, 1994). The OBC Scales are
described in Study 2 and the Body Esteem Scale is described in Study 1.
Each of the remaining measures is described below.
Body Consciousness Questionnaire. The Body Consciousness Ques-

tionnaire (BCQ; Miller et al., 1981) consists of 15 items designed to mea-
sure three aspects of body consciousness: private body consciousness (five
items) , public body consciousness (six items), and body competence (four
items). Participants responded on a 6-point scale from strongly disagree to
strongly agree. Items in each scale were summed to form a single score.
The first two scales correspond to the dimensions of Fenigstein et al.
(1975) of private and public self-consciousness (see Study 1) and refer to a
person’s awareness of the private aspects (such as heartbeat) and public
aspects (such as looking nice) of the body, respectively. The third scale
refers to a person’s feelings of body competence (e.g., “I’m better coordi-
nated than most people”). Miller et al. demonstrated their scales were
factorially sound and had good test-retest reliabilities. With our data, the
scales demonstrated low to moderate internal consistencies (a = .62, .69,
and .75 for private and public body consciousness and body competence,
respectively).
Appearance Orientation Scale of the MBSRQ. The Multidimensional

Body-Self Relations Questionnaire (MBSRQ) was developed by Cash and
his colleagues (Brown, Cash, & Mikulka, 1990; Cash, 1994; Cash,
Winstead, & Janda, 1986) to measure the multiple dimensions of body
image. We were particularly interested in the Appearance Orientation
Subscale, which consists of 12 items that measure the cognitive (e.g., “It is
important that I always look good”) and behavioral (e.g., “I am careful to
buy clothes that make me look my best”) components of appearance con-
cern. This scale showed good internal consistency (a = .84 for women)
and sound factor structure (Brown et al. , 1990). Participants responded
on a 5-point scale from definitely disagree to definitely agree and the items
were summed to form a single score.
Eating Attitudes Test (EAT-26). Participants responded on a 6-point

scale (never, rarely, sometimes, often, very often, and always) to 26 items

designed for self-report of disordered eating (Garner et al., 1982). This
shortened version of the 40-item EAT (Garner 81 Garfinkel, 1979) was
shown to be highly correlated to the original scale ( r = .98). Garner et al.
demonstrated that this scale, which is 84.9 % accurate in distinguishing
between clinical patients with anorexia nervosa and nonclinical popula-
tions, is useful in identifying women who should be screened for eating
disorders. The EAT-26 Scale was demonstrated to consist of three subfac-
tors: dieting (e.g., “engage in dieting behavior;” 13 items); bulimia and
food preoccupation (e.g., “vomit after I have eaten;” 6 items); and oral
control (e.g., “avoid eating when I am hungry;” 7 items). Internal consis-
tencies (a)for a sample of women diagnosed with anorexia nervosa were
.90, .84, .83, and .90 for dieting, bulimia, oral control, and the total
scale, respectively. For a sample of undergraduate women who served as
a comparison group, internal consistencies (a)were .86, .61, .46, and .83,
respectively. In a clinical sample of restricter and bulimic anorexic
women, the bulimics scored higher on the bulimia scale, and the restricters
scored higher on the oral control scale (Garner et al., 1982). The dieting
factor was shown to be related to greater body dissatification, but not to
frequency of bulimia or weight. Bulimia was not related to body dissatis-
faction, but was related to a higher frequency of bulimia and a heavier
weight. Oral control was related to a lower body weight and a lower
frequency of bulimia, but not to body dissatisfaction.
Antifat Attitudes Questionnaire (AAQ). Participants responded to

items on the Antifat Attitudes Questionnaire (AAQ; Crandall, 1994) on a
9-point scale from strongly disagree to strongly agree. This measure con-
sists of 13 items measuring antifat attitudes on three subscales: dislike
(e.g., “I really don’t like fat people much;” 7 items); fear of fat (e.g., “One
of the worst things that could happen to me would be if I gained 25
pounds;” 3 items); and willpower (e.g., “Some people are fat because
they have no willpower;” 3 items). The three subscales were shown to be
factorially sound and to have moderate internal consistency (dislike, a =
.84; fear of fat, CY = .79; willpower, a = .66).
Procedure
The women were asked to participate in a study concerning how women

think about themselves and their bodies. The surveys were administered
in two large groups by two European-American undergraduate women.
Participants were asked to return for a follow-up survey 2 weeks later.
With permission from the participants, the first author and another under-
graduate women made phone calls the day before the second testing to
remind participants of this session.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Test-Retest Re1iabiIities
The correlations between each of the OBC Scales at the two testing times
were .79 ( p < .001), .79 ( p < .001), and .73 ( p < .001) for surveil-
lance, body shame, and control beliefs, respectively. Thus, the OBC Scales
demonstrated good test-retest reliability.
Construct Validity of the Surveillance Scale
The Surveillance Scale had a strong positive correlation with both the
Appearance Orientation Scale of the MBSRQ, r(79) = .64, p < -001,
and with the BCQ Public Body Consciousness Scale, r(79) = .46, p <
.001. This supports Hypothesis 1 and demonstrates the conceptual related-
ness of surveillance to these two scales, especially the Appearance Orienta-
tion Scale, although the scales are not identical. Interestingly, neither the
Appearance Orientation Scale nor the Public Body Consciousness Scale
was significantly related to body esteem, 4 7 9 ) = - .06 and .06, w , re-
spectively, whereas the Surveillance Scale had a moderate negative corre-
lation with body esteem, r(79) = -.26, p < .05. Therefore, although
these measures are related, the Surveillance Scale was the best predictor of
body esteem.
Surveillance was not significantly related to private body consciousness
or to body competence. In fact, none of the OBC Scales were significantly
related to private body consciousness, that is, being aware of internal
thoughts or processes, while all three were significantly related to public
body consciousness (surveillance: r(79) = -46, p < .05; body shame:
r(79) = .25, p < .05; control beliefs: r(79) = .24, p < .05). This is con-
sistent with the argument that objectified body consciousness is concerned
with how one appears to others, rather than being aware of one’s own
thoughts and feelings. Body competence was negatively correlated to body
shame, r(79) = -.23, p < .05, and positively correlated with control
beliefs, r(79) = .22, p < .05.
Construct Validity of the Control Beliefs Scale
To test whether the Control Beliefs Scale measures simply weight control
beliefs or more general appearance control beliefs, the correlations be-
tween the Control Beliefs Scale and the Willpower Scale of the AAQ were
examined. Contrary to Hypothesis 2, these two scales were not signifi-
cantly related, r(80) = .14, ns. This may be because these two scales are
worded so differently. The Willpower Scale items refer to “fat people” and

“people who weigh too much,” whereas the Control Beliefs Scale refers to
the self and to others, but not specifically to fat people. It is possible that
in this group of young women beliefs about the responsibility of fat people
for their weight and the responsibility of themselves and unspecified others
for weight and more general appearance control are distinct constructs.
None of the three OBC Scales were significantly correlated to the Dislike
of Fat People or the Willpower Subscales, but both surveillance and body
shame had strong positive correlations with the Fear of Fat Subscale,
~~(8= 0 ).51 and .71, p s < ,001, respectively. This underlines the argu-
ment that weight is the cultural standard that is most important at this
time and the fear of fat is strongly related to objectified body conscious-
ness.
Relationship of OBC to Disordered Eating
To explore the relationship of objectified body consciousness to disordered

eating, the correlations between the OBC Scales and the EAT-26 (Garner
et al., 1982) were examined. Following the scoring method of Garner and
Garfinkel (1979), participants who circled 6 (that is, always) were given
a score of 3, those who circled 5 (that is, very often) were given a score of
2, those who circled 4 (that is, often) were given a sore of 1, and those
who circled 1, 2, or 3 were given a score of 0 for a given item. The total
EAT-26 score was positively related to all three OBC Scales and negatively
to body esteem (surveillance: ~ ( 8 1 )= .48, p < .001; body shame: ~ ( 8 1 )
= . 6 l , p < .001; control beliefs: ~ ( 8 1 )= .31, p < .01; and body es-
teem: r(81) = - .36, p < .01). The Dieting Scale reflects “pathological
avoidance of fattening foods and shape preoccupation” (p. 877, Garner
et al., 1982) and all three OBC Scales had moderate to strong positive
correlations with this scale (surveillance: r(81) = .46, p < .001; body
shame: ~ ( 8 1 )= .68, p < .001; control beliefs: ~ ( 8 1 )= .24, p < .05).
Body esteem, on the other hand, had a strong negative correlation with
this measure, ~ ( 8 1 )= - .42, p < .001. The Bulimia Scale, which is re-
lated to higher levels of bulimia and heavier body weight, also had moder-
ate to strong positive correlations with all three OBC Scales and a strong
negative correlation with body esteem (surveillance: ~ ( 8 1 )= .48, p <
.001; body shame: ~ ( 8 1 )= .60, p < .001; control beliefs: r(81) = .30, p
< .01; body esteem: r(81) = - .39, p < .001). The Oral Control Scale,
which is associated with lower levels of bulimia and lower body weight,
had moderate positive correlations with surveillance, r(81) = .25, p <
.05, and control beliefs, r(81) = .30, p < .01, but had no significant
relationship with body shame or body esteem. Of particular interest is the
strong correlation between body shame and the bulimia factor, suggesting
there may be a relationship between body shame and bulimic symptomol-
ogy. These findings support Hypothesis 4 and show that control beliefs are

208 MCKINLEY
AND HYDE
related to not only the more typical restricted eating, but also the disor-
dered eating. Hypothesis 3 was partially supported: surveillance was re-
lated to all disordered eating measures, however, body shame was not
related to the Oral Control Scale. The Oral Control Scale is more strongly
associated with anorexia than bulimia (Garner et al., 1982). Strauman et
al. (1991) found that the discrepancy between a person’s actual and
“ought” self-descriptions were related to anorexic symptomology, whereas
actual/ideal discrepancies were related to bulimic symptomology. Body
shame is presumably related to an internalized ideal rather than an other-
imposed “ought,” and this may account for the lack of relationship be-
tween this measure and the Oral Control Scale.
Garner et al. (1982) demonstrated that the total EAT-26 score could be
useful in identifying women who should be screened for eating disorders.
Using their cut-off score of 20 on the total EAT-26, 16% ( N = 13) of the
women were found to be in this “at-risk group. Using a one-way
MANOVA, we compared these women with the 68 women who scored
below the cut-off to determine whether there were any differences in
body esteem or the OBC Scales. Examination of Box’s M showed that
the variances between the groups were significantly different, Box’s M =
24.62, p < .05. A log transformation was performed on the body esteem
and control beliefs scores, and the MANOVA was run again. For this
MANOVA, the variances were no longer significantly different, Box’s M
= 19.36, ns. The multivariate test of the differences between the groups
was significant, Pillai’s F(4, 76) = 7.83, p < .001. Univariate tests
showed that the groups differed on surveillance, body shame, and body
esteem. The “at-risk” group had higher surveillance ( M = 5.81, SD =
.71) than the other women ( M = 4.85, SD = .86), F ( l , 79) = 14.18, p
< -001. They also had higher body shame ( M = 5.15, SD = .80) than
the other women ( M = 3.46, SD = 1.14), F(1, 79) = 26.19, p < .001.
They had lower body esteem ( M = 2.17, SD = .28, and M = 3.26, SD
= .59, for the two groups, respectively), F(1, 79) = 8.91, p < .01. This
partially supports Hypothesis 5 and demonstrates a pattern of increased
objectification and lowered body esteem for young women who are at risk
for eating disorders. It is interesting that the women with high eating
disorder symptomology did not have higher control beliefs than their co-
horts, F ( l , 79) = 1.02, rn. Although all of the EAT-26 subscales were
positively correlated to control beliefs, control beliefs apparently did not
distinguish those whose symptoms were extreme from those whose symp-
toms were more moderate.
GENERAL DISCUSSION
The purpose of this project was to develop and validate a scale to measure
objectified body consciousness, which consists of behaviors and attitudes
feminist theorists Bartky (1988) and Spitzack (1990) have argued account

for women’s negative body experience. Objectified body consciousness was
shown to be a construct that can be measured reliably and validly and
that has three dimensions: surveillance, body shame, and control beliefs.
Objectified body consciousness was shown to be related to body esteem
and eating practices in both young women and middle-aged women. Ad-
ditionally, it has been shown to be related to disordered eating. Based on
these results, there is ample evidence to conclude that the arguments of
the feminist theorists Bartky and Spitzack were confirmed.
We have argued that an analysis of women’s body experience, from the
perspective that the feminine body is constructed as an object to be
watched, provides a more thorough understanding of women’s body expe-
rience than previous psychological research on body attitudes. A consider-
able amount of research exists documenting gender differences in body
satisfaction (e.g., Cash et al., 1986; McCauley et al., 1988; Mintz & Betz,
1986; Sullivan & Harnish, 1983), the differing components of women’s
and men’s body satisfaction (e.g., Cash & Brown, 1989), and the corre-
lates of body dissatisfaction (e.g., Mintz & Betz, 1986; Silberstein et al.,
1988). Additionally, previous research has examined the personality fac-
tors that increase vulnerability to negative body esteem, such as discrepan-
cies between one’s ideal and actual self (Strauman et al., 1991). The
OBC Scales add to this literature in several ways. First of all, these scales
reinterpret previous constructs and introduce several new constructs to
the literature on women’s body experience. The Surveillance Scale, while
similar to some of the items on the Appearance Orientation Scale on the
Multidimensional Body-Self Relations Questionnaire (Brown et al., 1990;
Cash et al., 1986), has been reconceptualized to represent the amount of
time a woman spends watching her body as an outside observer, rather
than the importance of appearance. This distinction is important because
the former interpretation connects this behavior to the research on public
versus private self-consciousness. This suggests that this type of conscious-
ness will lead to comparisons of the self with standards (Carver & Scheier,
1981) and presumably lowered body esteem and psychological well-being.
The Public Body Consciousness Scale (Miller et al., 1981) was based on
the Public Consciousness Scale of Fenigstein et al. (1975), but was not
related to body esteem in this study. This may be because this scale refers
more to specific body parts (e.g. , “hair” and “hands”), which may or may
not be what a particular woman watches, rather than the more general
“looks” that are emphasized by the Surveillance Scale. In addition to the
reinterpretation of the Surveillance Scale, the OBC Scales include a new
construct: body shame. Body shame, that is, feeling negatively about the
self when cultural body standards are not achieved, was consistently
shown to be an important predictor of diverse outcomes such as body
esteem and restricted eating. We have utilized this scale to measure inter-
nalization of cultural body standards, and it appears to capture the essence
of the feminist theorists’ conceptualization of construct: not only endorse-

ment of those standards, but the connection of the achievement of those
standards to a woman’s feelings of worth as a human being. The Con-
trol Beliefs Scale adds a much needed measure of the extent to which
women believe they control their appearance. This measure emphasizes
the contradictory relationship women may have with their bodies: even
though watching the body was associated with lowered body esteem, be-
lieving they can control their body was associated with higher body es-
teem.
In addition to the reinterpretation and introduction of these constructs
to the psychological research on body image, the OBC Scales are impor-
tant because they allow an account of women’s negative body experience
that goes beyond the documentation of gender difference. While the gen-
der differences literature is an important starting point, it is not particu-
larly useful in explaining why women are less satisfied with their bodies.
References to factors such as gender roles and media pressure add little to
these analyses because they do not explain the psychological processes by
which these factors are translated into negative body experience. Research
that calls attention to the personality factors that make a woman vulnera-
ble to body dissatisfaction is also useful, but draws attention away from
the external forces that shape women’s body consciousness. The constructs
associated with objectified body consciousness call attention to specific
behaviors and beliefs that are related to dissatisfaction and emphasize the
social constructions that encourage these behaviors and beliefs.
Negative body experience adversely affects large numbers of U. S.
women, not just psychologically, but economically and politically as well
(Wolf, 1991). For feminist researchers, changing women’s body experi-
ence must be a priority agenda. Calling attention to objectified body
consciousness is important because it allows us to speculate on the ways
negative body experience could be changed. For example, for young
women, reducing body surveillance is a strategy that might reduce body
shame and increase body esteem. Education that points out the social
constructions that support internalization is also likely to be important.
The data here suggest that changing women’s body consciousness will
not be an easy task. Because higher control beliefs are tied to increased
body esteem, women may not be open to information suggesting that they
do not control their bodies. It may be that women who are out of control
in other domains of their lives try to achieve control through practices
such as surveillance and restricted eating and may thus be resistant to
change. We cannot ignore the importance of women having control in
their lives. An important goal, then, might be working to increase wom-
en’s opportunities for achievement and instrumentality in domains other
than appearance to broaden their access to personal control.
In addition to the internal pressure to maintain the beliefs and behaviors
that support objectification, external pressures to maintain objectification
are not likely to abate when a woman changes her own behavior. A study

Objectified Body Consciousness Scale 21 1
where undergraduate women and men rated a women who was high or
low on each of the three OBC Scales found that a woman with low body
surveillance is likely to face negative evaluation from others and one with
low control beliefs may be less liked by her peers (McKinley, 1995). Study-
ing these multiple points of maintenance of negative body experience
should demonstrate the complexity of the problem, as well as the multiple
points of possibility for resistance.
The limitations of this study should be noted, along with possible future
directions. The data were limited in that they were correlational, and
therefore causal inferences cannot be drawn. Surveillance could poten-
tially be manipulated in a laboratory setting, but it is unclear whether
this sort of short-term manipulation would correspond to differences in a
lifetime of body surveillance. Body shame and control beliefs would be
more difficult to manipulate. Perhaps a longer term program that in-
cluded education and peer support might be more useful than a laboratory
experiment for studying the potential for improvement in women’s body
esteem and psychological well-being. Programs of this type are being used
by feminist therapists (e.g., Ciliska, 1993; Hutchinson, 1994) and fol-
low-up studies of participants in these groups would be valuable. These
data also represent the experience of only certain groups of women. The
sample of mothers and daughters allowed for matching on many charac-
teristics, but the familial relationship may also have caused greater agree-
ment on body attitudes than might be found in nonrelated groups. Also,
because most participants were European American, heterosexual, and,
presumably, middle class, the applicability of these findings to other
groups is limited. Before making conclusions about the body experience of
all women, more groups should be surveyed. Although extremes of body
dissatisfaction, and accompanying eating disorders, are often conceptual-
ized as the province of young, middle-class, European-American women,
researchers have only begun to explore the relationship of cultural body
standards to body esteem in other groups of women and are finding other
women may be both protected from and multiply oppressed by cultural
body standards (Thompson, 1994). Studying the prevalence of objectified
body consciousness in women from diverse ethnic groups, as well as other
groups not usually thought of at high risk for body image disturbance,
such as lesbians, would increase our knowledge of the differing experiences
of these women and also provide further data on the relevance of objecti-
fied body consciousness across diverse groups of women. Additionally,
although we have theorized that the location of women’s body experience
is in cultural constructions of the female body, not in personal deficits of
the individual woman, further study of the external pressure for the dis-
play of objectified body consciousness would be valuable, and this re-
search is currently being pursued by the first author.
In conclusion, the use of feminist theory in this project proved to be an
enriching addition to current psychological knowledge of women’s body

experience. Particularly, the emphasis on social context, both in social
constructions of the body and external pressure for objectification, is im-
portant to add to individualizing accounts of body dissatisfaction. At the
same time, these data demonstrate the empirical psychological research
can complement feminist theory. The argument for the significance of
objectified body consciousness to women’s body experience is further
strengthened by demonstrating that these constructs were measurable and
were correlated to body esteem in the predicted ways. The combination of
psychological research and feminist theory was a powerful approach for
understanding women’s body experience and suggesting ways to improve
women’s lives.
First draft received: August 3, 1995

Final draft received: December 7,1995
NOTES
1. Many women we have talked with associate restricted eating or dieting with “healthy
eating.” By pointing out the negative results of restricted eating, we do not mean to suggest
that what people eat makes no difference to their health. Eating in order to get sufficient
nutrients, as well as calories, and avoiding foods that are shown to have negative impact
on health, such as those containing excessive salt or fat, can have a positive effect on our
health (Ernsberger & Haskew, 1987). The problem occurs when weight loss is the goal of
eating properly. Because weight is so resistant to change, attempts to control weight
through restricted eating are likely to result in compulsive behavior or an abandonment of
healthy eating (Ernsberger & Haskew, 1987). Similar arguments can be made for exercis-
ing to lose weight (Bennett & Gurin, 1982).
2. This goodness-of-fit x 2 tests whether the covariance matrix estimated for the predicted
model is different from the covariance matrix of the data. A nonsignificant x 2 indicates the
matrices are not significantly different and the predicted model is a good fit for the data.
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The Objectified Body Consciousness Scale: Article

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Psychology of Women Quarterly, 20 (1996),181-215. Printed in the United States of America.

Nita Mary McKinley

Janet Shibley Hyde

P u b l i e d by Cambridge University Press 0361-6843196 $7.50 + .lo 181

culture and how this contributes to negative body esteem (particularly,

According to feminist theorists, the feminine body is constructed as an

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The central tenet of OBC is that the feminine body is constructed as an

Internalization of Cultural Standards and Body Shame

Cultural body standards provide the ideal to which a woman compares

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Responsibility for Appearance: Control Beliefs

OBC relies on an underlying assumption that women are responsible for

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OBC and Women’s Body Experience

Objectified body consciousness, then, creates a situation in which a

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MEASURING OBJECTIFIEDBODY CONSCIOUSNESS

We conducted a series of studies to develop and validate a scale to measure

Other Relevant Scales

The Appearance Orientation scale of the Multidimensional Body-Self Re-

The Current Study

In Study 1, undergraduate women were surveyed to develop the initial

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The purpose of this study was to survey undergraduate women to develop

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Participants were 121 undergraduate women. They were recruited from

Participants completed surveys including, among other measures, demo-

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RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Examination of the scree plot of eigenvalues (Cattell, 1966) for the 69

Reliability of the OBC Scales

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Factor I Factor 2 Factor 3

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Validity of the OBC Scales

Surveillance 4.22 (.91)

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The purpose of Study 2 was to conduct a confirmatory factor analysis of

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Participants were undergraduate women and the middle-aged mothers of

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Participants completed a battery of measures, including the OBC Scales

Young and middle-aged women were asked to participate in a study about

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Confirmatory Factor Analysis

To determine the goodness of fit of the three-factor structure of the OBC

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Model X2 df GFI AGFI

Young women (N = 113)

two-factor models was significant, ~ ' ( 2 N , = 113) = 56.39, p < .001.

Reliability of OBC Scales

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Surveillance had a moderate negative correlation with body esteem for

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Validation of the Body Shame Scale as a Measure of

To demonstrate the validity of body shame as a measure of internalization

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Participants were 103 undergraduate women aged 18 to 21 years ( M =

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