Have you ever walked past a nightclub in frosty weather and seen girls in short dresses, without jackets and other “extra” clothes? Surely you wondered: “But why are they not cold?” Scientists have found the answer to this question.
The authors of the new study, Roxane N. Felig and her colleagues, suggest that there is a psychological explanation for why these women do not feel cold — this may be due to such a thing as self-objectification.
Self-objectification is a phenomenon where a person is overly concerned with how others perceive their appearance. Such people see themselves as an object of attraction and attraction.
Interestingly, often self-objectification is associated with reduced attention to one’s bodily processes, for example, it is difficult for a person to understand whether he is hungry. Scientists suggest that preoccupation with appearance consumes attention resources, so it is more difficult to recognize the internal signals of the body.
According to the results of the study, among nightclub goers, girls who did not objectify themselves, or those who had lower self-esteem, felt the cold more. Alcohol consumption was taken into account, however this condition did not affect the results.
“These data show that as women take care of their appearance, they increasingly lose access to the physical processes of the body,” says Roxane Felig. “In contrast, women with low levels of self-objectification showed a positive and intuitive relationship between how they were dressed and feeling cold: the more naked they were, the more cold they felt.”
The researchers also suggest that the historical factor also played a role: Victorian corsets, high heels and cosmetic surgery are all examples of long-term discomfort for the sake of appearance. The authors plan a new study that will help find out whether temporary manipulation of self-objectification contributes to the fact that people are less aware of the physical processes of the body.
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