The Double Standard
It must never be forgotten in Greek mythology that Narcissus—a victim cursed by the gods to fall in love with his own reflection–was a guy and a young one too.
Past research shows that men are more satisfied with their own bodies and see themselves to be better-looking and less overweight, in general. Men do experience body dissatisfaction, but that is in the area of muscularity and size, but usually less than female dissatisfaction. Beginning in childhood, girls express greater body anxiety about their weight and appearance as contrasted with boys. Conversely, girls’ body esteem falls as their weight increases while boyish self-esteem drops only when they reach obese body-mass index levels (Shriver et al., 2013). One study tracking adolescent boys and girls over time found out that body dissatisfaction increases with time in both sexes and that the highest levels of body dissatisfaction experienced by boys were equal to the lowest levels of girls’ body dissatisfaction (Bucchianeri et al., 2013). These findings are pretty much representative of gender differences.
The application of double standards has been confirmed for self-ratings of performance with men usually rating themselves as more intelligent than do women (Furnham, 2001). In a study of biology students, men and women applied the same standards to evaluate the intelligence of another student. Men rated themselves to be more intelligent than 66 percent of their class. Women considered themselves to be more intelligent than 54 percent of their classmates (Cooper et al., 2018). This finding suggests that women are more likely to consider themselves as being of average intelligence while men are more likely to judge themselves as being higher and so there seems to exist a larger male double standard regarding the intelligence of others than that held by women (Foschi, 1996). There are male stereotyped gender standards which dictate that men have to be confident, independent and self-focused to be a man while those for women force them to be less assertive and more empathic toward others. These gender role rules may cause men to overestimate their own competence when compared to that of women (Moss-Racusin et al., 2010). And, further, other research shows that men evaluate their own body in a more self-serving ways than do women (McCreary & Sadava, 2001; Lemon et al., 2009). These findings all support the notion of men using a double standard to rate their bodies more positively while women rate their own more critically (Buote et al., 2011).
The Experiment
But, again, and in general, it has not been known whether or not the body rating differences come from the double standards inherent in both men and women. That is the problem a recent research study sought to investigate by posing two questions (Voges et al., 2019):
“Do men apply different standards to their own body versus other men’s bodies” and “Do men differ from women along these lines?”
Experimenters presented 104 women and 93 men with pictures of thin, average-weight, overweight, athletic and hyper-muscular male and female bodies on a computer screen. The bodies were shown once with the respective test subject’s gender, then with the test subject’s own face, and then with the face of another person. The theory behind this is that identity cues such as the face and its features activate different body perceptions within the brain which then influence body ratings which may include the application of double standards. Subjects rated their emotional response to the images based on the level of arousal they experienced and then rated the body pictures for attractiveness, body fat, and muscle mass. The application of double standards was determined by calculating the difference between the rating of a body presented with the participant’s face and the rating of the same body presented with another person’s face. The difference yields the strength of the potential double standard.
From https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00544/full#B30.
When presented with their own faces on the overweight body both men and women rated it as more unattractive than when it had a stranger’s face. The overweight bodies were rated the most unattractive confirming the general prejudice against fat body forms. In contrast to the overweight body, men showed self-serving double standards in body attractiveness and muscle mass for the body rated as the most attractive; i.e., the athletic body which reflects the ideal male body form (Crossley et al., 2012). Identification with the attractive athletic body might activate body perceptions and evaluations that having such a body would be beneficial; e.g., for mate choice (Hönekopp et al., 2007), thus leading to theses shapes being rated more positively.
Both women and men showed self-deprecating double standards in body attractiveness—that is, they made little, self-critical jokes about themselves—as well as for body fat and muscle mass for the overweight body. Men made self-deprecating comments with double standards for the thin, average-weight and hyper-muscular bodies. They judged the athletic body as being more attractive and had higher positive regard for it when shown with their own faces. Women did not show any self-serving double standards and showed fewer self-deprecating double standards than men.
Male test subjects tended to reject the unattractive body pictures while appreciating the image of the ideal male body. They rated the body images in a self-serving way if they perceived a body feature as being desirable. And, if they perceived a male body form as very desirable, they saw it even more positively when it had their face as opposed to the face of a stranger. This is in line with studies showing that men evaluate their intelligence as above average, whereas women believe themselves to be of average intelligence (Cooper et al., 2018).
Closing Thoughts
The results show that the male test subjects devalued unattractive bodies while valuing the ideal bodies and especially so when they were identified with their own faces. Female test subjects tended to rate the body shapes in a more judicious and realistic manner. The difference here indicates that the ability to self-enhance on the part of men, in contrast to women, may be protect a man’s sense of self-worth and body satisfaction. In other words, self-enhancement protects and bolsters the male ego. Both sexes are vain although they express it—and most likely—experience it differently from one another. Likewise, both experience body dissatisfaction although differently. This study indicates that men use the infamous double-standard as a body-ego self-image defense more so than women.
Paul Shane, Ph.D., LMT
Director, Academic Content
References
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Shriver, L., Harrist, A., Page, M., Hubbs-Tait, L., Moulton, M., & Topham, G. (2013). Differences in body esteem by weight status, gender, and physical activity among young elementary school-aged children. Body Image 10, p. 78–84.
Voges, M., Giabbiconi, C., Schone, B., Waldorf, M., Hartmann, A., & Vocks, S. (2019). Gender differences in body evaluation: Do men show more self-serving double standards than women? Frontiers in Psychology, https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00544.
Revised 05-02-24.