Abstract:
The experimental study reported here employed one of the most compelling visual cues
of female sexual attractiveness (low waist-to-hip ratio) to test the influence of news
anchor sexualization on audience evaluations of her as a professional and their memory
for the news that she presents. Male participants saw the sexualized version of the anchor
as less suited for war and political reporting. They also encoded less news information
presented by the sexualized than her unsexualized version. Conclusions were drawn in
line with evolutionary psychology expectations of men’s cognitive susceptibility to visual
sex cues. Women participants, on the other hand, did not vary across conditions in their
assessments of the anchor’s competence to report on war and political news. Moreover,
they encoded more news information presented by the sexualized than unsexualized
anchor condition.
