The hierarchical regression was repeated with
women, and the results are presented in Table III. As
can be seen in Table III, the significant effect of selfobjectification
was reduced to nonsignificance when
appearance enhancement reasons for exercise were
added to the equation. Sobel’s (1982) test showed
that the decrease in β values is significant, z(2, 67) =
2.56, p < .01. Taken together, the two regression
analyses indicate that appearance-related reasons
for exercise mediate the relationship between selfobjectification
and body esteem for women, and they
partially mediate the relationship for men.