Girls with ages from 10 to 15 with higher levels of "internalized sexualization," or a belief it's important to be sexually attractive, score lower on standardized tests and receive lower grades in school than their peers.

A study by two researchers from the University of Texas at Austin asked young adolescent girls to film a mock newscast. Girls with lower and higher scores on the internalized sexualization measure prepared differently for the newscast.

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Girls with the higher rating spent more time putting on makeup; spending less time practicing the actual content of the newscast than girls with lower levels.

"Those girls who believe that being sexually attractive to males is important appear to invest more of their time and effort in that domain," said Rebecca Bigler, a psychology professor that led the study.

"Because everyone's resources are limited, the investment in sexiness comes at the expense of other domains, including academics."

According to the psychologists, even Halloween costume choices for girls may reflect a damaging preoccupation with being attractive sexually.

While boys commonly have a plethora of options for a costume, ranging from funny to scary and from powerful to nerdy, costumes of girls are more restricted in scope and are increasingly sexualized with features such as high heels, short skirts and a fitted bodice.

"The solitary act of wearing a sexy costume may not negatively affect a girl's development, but continued exposure to sexualized messages can lead to body dissatisfaction, disordered eating, low self-esteem and depression among women," said Bigler.

In a separate study published by Bigler and Sarah McKenney, co-author of the study and former psychology graduate student, scores on the scale of internalized sexualization were used to anticipate the degree to which girls aged 11 to 15 wear tight and revealing clothing.

The researchers noted that while some feminists say sexual desirability may be a source of empowerment for some women, girls with higher levels of sexualization demonstrated higher body shame rates than their peers.

TagsAdolescent girls, girls, teenagers, Sexualization, Internal sexualization, Sexualized body image, psychology, Body shame, Feminist, Bad Feminist