Psychology Faculty Profiles
Renee Engeln-Maddox, Ph.D.
Lecturer
Office: Swift 304
Phone: (847) 491-4973
E-mail: rengeln@northwestern.edu
Research Interests
My primary research interests involve 1) exploring the link between images of women in the media and women's perceptions about their own bodies and 2) testing proposed mediators, moderators, and outcomes of Objectification Theory. More specifically, I have been examining how and why women "talk back" to the images they see in the media, and whether this type of critical processing is related to lower levels of body image disturbance. I have also conducted a series of studies exploring the life outcomes women associate with the media's beauty ideal, and whether perceptions regarding these outcomes can be manipulated as a means of attenuating women's dissatisfaction with their own appearance. In a related series of studies, I have been developing interventions designed to encourage women to focus on their internal qualities (e.g., personality traits, interests, academic strengths) as a means of decreasing the extent to which they focus on appearance-related dimensions when responding to media images. Finally, I have recently begun investigating trait-level self-objectification as a mediator in the relationship between media exposure and psychopathology. A recent grant will allow me to compare the pathways linking self-objectification and body image disturbance in gay and lesbian men and women and heterosexual men and women.
A separate line of research I have been working on with a colleague (Steven Miller) involves measuring the degree to which students participating in studies through psychology department participant pools are motivated to complete research surveys accurately and how often these research participants fail to follow instructions during psychological research. The primary goal of this research is to determine how "unmotivated" participants can affect statistical power in experiments.
Selected Publications
Engeln-Maddox, R. (2007). An alternate universe: Women, body image, and the paradox of thinness on Survivor. In G. Yeffeth (Ed.), The Psychology of Survivor. Dallas, TX: Benbella Books.
Engeln-Maddox, R., & Miller, S.A. (in press). Talking back to the media ideal: The development and validation of the Critical Processing of Beauty Images Scale. Psychology of Women Quarterly.
Engeln-Maddox, R. (2006). Buying the beauty standard or dreaming of a new life? Expectations associated with media ideals. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 30, 258-266.
Engeln-Maddox, R. (2005). Cognitive responses to idealized media images of women: The relationship of social comparison and critical processing to body image disturbance in college women. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 24, 1036-1060.
