RESEARCH_FILE
Self-objectification
Self-objectification is the habit of viewing your own body from the outside — as an object to be looked at and evaluated — rather than from the inside, as the thing you live and act with. Proposed by Fredrickson and Roberts (1997), it develops when a culture's constant evaluation of bodies gets internalized as a default perspective on oneself, and it is linked to increased shame, anxiety, and reduced awareness of internal bodily states.
How it sounds in your head
Mid-conversation at a party, part of your attention leaves the conversation to run a silent audit: how am I standing, what does my stomach look like from their angle, should I not have worn this? In the swimsuit experiment, that same divided state was strong enough to measurably lower math performance.