A new study of male behaviour, reported in the National Geographic confirms that sexy women in bikinis really do inspire some men to see them as objects.
Brain scans revealed that when men are shown pictures of scantily clad women, the region of the brain associated with tool use lights up.
Men were also more likely to associate images of sexualized women with first-person action verbs such as "I push, I grasp, I handle," said lead researcher Susan Fiske, a psychologist at Princeton University. Read more about the study here.
If a similar study were done with women, Fiske told National Geographic News, it would be hard to predict whether a woman shown a scantily clad male body would dehumanize him in the same way.
Evolutionary psychologists have proposed that women tend to look for mates who have wealth and power, so some of Fiske's colleagues have suggested running a similar test where women are shown pictures of men next to expensive cars or other affluent symbols.
But Fiske doesn't think such an experiment would work the same way, because women usually react to men they desire by "interpreting their minds, thinking about what they're interested in, and then trying to please them," she said.
Picture above, from National Geographic, shows women dance as part of a bikini contest in Cancún, Mexico. Brain scans reveal that when heterosexual men are shown pictures of scantily clad women, the region of the brain associated with tool use lights up.
Men were also more likely to associate images of sexualized women with first-person action verbs such as "I push, I grasp, I handle," researchers said in February 2009.
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