Into the Fold, Episode 12: Adolescent Girls and Internalized Sexualization

One of the biggest challenges for adolescent girls is developing an effective sense of self amid the sexualizing gaze of popular culture, their peers, and society at large. There is now evidence that the everyday process of contending with, and placating, this sexualizing gaze imposes cognitive costs that can negatively impact girls' performance on the kinds of mentally demanding tasks required to excel in school and the workplace. In this episode of Into the Fold, Dr. Rebecca Bigler, professor of psychology at The University of Texas, discusses her recent study, in which a sample of adolescent girls is asked to conduct a mock news broadcast, and its compelling finding that the preoccupation with being "hot" (i.e. conventionally attractive, feminine and sexually available) can come at the expense of job-related performance.