Sexualized Aspect of Child Bullying Victim Decreases Peers’ Helping Intentions: Mediating Role of Perceived Humanness

• In Event: 3-144 - Sexualization in Childhood and Early Adolescence: Associations with Peer Relationships, Academics, and Body Image

Integrative Statement

In Western cultures, the sexualization of children has increased its spread over the past two decades, involving their representation in media contents, clothing market, and entertainment products. Despite the arising concerns for this phenomenon, very little empirical attention has been devoted to the investigation of the consequences of children’s sexualization in terms of how sexualized children are perceived and treated by their peers. The present research comprises two studies aimed at filling this gap, by investigating for the first time the relations between pre-teens’ sexualization and their peers’ willingness to provide help following a bullying episode, and by considering the mediational role of humanness attributions. In Study 1, a 2 (female target's sexualization: sexualized vs. non-sexualized) x 2 (participants’ gender: male vs. female) between participant research design was adopted. Two hundred seventeen Italian pre-teen participants (52.1% males; Mage = 9.01, SD = .91) attending third (n = 66), fourth (n = 71) and fifth (n = 80) elementary grades took part in Study 1. Since the aim of Study 2 was to extend Study 1 by considering the consequences of male sexualization along with female sexualization, a 2 (target's sexualization: sexualized vs. non-sexualized) x 2 (target's gender: male vs. female) x 2 (participants’ gender: male vs. female) between participant research design was adopted. In Study 2, 122 Italian pre-teen participants (45.4% males; Mage = 8.93, SD = .83) attending third (n = 48), fourth (n = 62) and fifth (n = 42) elementary grades took part. Children were recruited from a primary schools located in a middle-size town in Central Italy and were tested at their school where an experimenter provided the instructions necessary to fill out a paper-and-pencil questionnaire. They received one picture portraying a pre-teen target. Participants were instructed to observe the picture and to leave the picture on the desk in front of them while filling out the questionnaire. After completing the humanness assessment, participants were presented with a short scenario in which the peer target portrayed in the picture was described as the alleged victim of a bullying episode engaged by a same-sex classmate. Participants were asked to report the degree to which they approved the bully’s behavior and their intention to help the target. Our findings provide initial evidence that early sexualization exposes pre-teen children to the same well-documented dehumanizing consequences associated with adult women’s sexualization. We found that sexualized pre-teens were perceived as less than fully human, in terms of both Human Nature and Human Uniqueness (Studies 1 and 2), and that the detrimental effects of sexualization on humanness and helping intentions were the same for both male and female targets.

Authors

• Maria Giuseppina Pacilli, University of Perugia
  Presenting Author

• Federica Spaccatini, University of Perugia
  Non-Presenting Author

• Carlo Tomasetto, University of Bologna
  Non-Presenting Author