Spectatoring and the relationship between body image and sexual experience: Self‐focus or self‐valence?

Abstract

A recently reported finding that negative body image is associated with lower levels of sexual experience was replicated in a large, ethnically diverse sample of undergraduates. Additional analyses failed to support a proposed spectatoring, or chronic self‐focus, interpretation of this association (e.g., Faith & Schare, 1993). First, correlations between body image and a variety of dispositional self‐focus measures were either nonsignificant or in a direction opposite to that assumed by the spectatoring hypothesis. Second, a composite of self‐focus ratings on three trait adjectives shown to be associated with a narcissistic personality profile, flirtatiousness, seductive, and fashionable, explained most of the correlation between body image and sexual experience. These findings suggest body image‐related sexual inexperience may have more to do with motivational mechanisms associated with self‐valence (e.g., expectancy‐mediated disengagement or avoidance) than with cognitive mechanisms associated with self‐focus (e.g., chronic attentional distraction from arousal cues). Explanatory pitfalls in the dual attentional and evaluative meanings of Masters and Johnson's (1970) construct of spectatoring are discussed.