The appraisal of body-cathexis: body-cathexis and the self.

A substantial amount of current research in personality is devoted to the study of the individual's personal world. One object which is ever-present in this personal world is the body. It is the thesis of the present writers that the individual's attitudes towards his body are of crucial importance to any comprehensive theory of personality; yet little attention has been given to this subject by psychologists. The present paper is concerned with one variety of attitude, namely, body-cathexis. By bodycathexis is meant the degree of feeling of satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the various parts or processes of the body. If the variable body-cathexis is to be deemed important for personality theory, it is nqcessary to demonstrate that it is related to other personality variables which are recognized as significant. For reasons which need not be discussed here, body-cathexis is believed to be integrally related to the self-concept, although identifiable as a separate aspect thereof. From this notion of relatedness of body and self, the following more specific hypotheses were formulated and tested: 1. Feelings about the body are commensurate with feelings about the self, when both are appraised by similar scales. 2. Negative feelings about the body are associated with anxiety, in the form of undue autistic concern with pain, disease, or bodily injury. 3. Negative feelings about the body are associated with feelings of insecurity involving the self.