Smile Pretty and Watch Your Back: Personal Safety Anxiety and Vigilance in Objectification Theory

Objectification Theory posits that everyday encounters with sexual objectification carry a diffuse nonspecific

this tenet across 5 studies and 1,665 participants using multiple methods. Study 1 (N=207) and Study 2 (N=

(PSAVS), a measure of personal safety anxiety, and provided evidence for the reliability and construct validity

women and men, and differentially mediated the relation between sexual objectification and restricted freedom

men. Study 4 (N=460) included a comprehensive test of personal safety anxiety within an expanded

and self-objectification to women’s restricted freedom of movement. Study 5 (N=474) replicated these

assessment tool for future research on safety anxiety, illuminate the real and lasting sense of threat engendered

women’s lived experiences posited in Objectification Theory.