Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Stephanie Pappas — Women And Objectification: Brain Sees Men As Whole, Women In Parts (STUDY)


Read it at The Huffington Post
Women And Objectification: Brain Sees Men As Whole, Women In Parts (STUDY)
Stephanie Pappas

Most interesting observation:
"There could be evolutionary reasons that men and women process female bodies differently, Gervais said, but because both genders do it, "the media is probably a prime suspect."
"Women's bodies and their body parts are used to sell all sorts of products, but we are now for everyday, ordinary women, processing them in a similar way," she said.
Fortunately, the fact that the simple letter-mosaic task swept the effect away suggests that it's an easy habit to overcome, Gervais said. Being in a happy mood is related to global processing, she said, so avoiding blue funks could help you see people in a holistic way, as could simply reminding yourself to step back and look at the bigger picture.
Perception shapes reality and media (culture) shape perception collectively, i.e., this is apparently not an individual phenomenon due to the human hardware or operating system, but rather the cultural programming of an application. That programming can be identified and changed.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I see both women and men as wholes.

It's sometimes admittedly difficult to not focus on female body parts, but it is possible.

Mind over matter.

Matt Franko said...

Tom I think you may be inviting a lot of controversy with this post my friend! ;) rsp

Tom Hickey said...

Matt: "Tom I think you may be inviting a lot of controversy with this post my friend! ;) rsp"

That's often why I post things, Matt.

This is directly related to perceptions of "money," for example. Many focus in the parts and miss the whole.