Lonelier, Lazier, and Teased: The Stigmatizing Effect of Body Size

• Published in: The Journal of social psychology Vol. 148; no. 5; pp. 577 - 594
• Main Authors: Swami, Viren, Furnham, Adrian, Amin, Reena, Chaudhri, Jahanara, Joshi, Kiran, Jundi, Shyma, Miller, Rebecca, Mirza-Begum, Julia, Begum, Fateha Nisha, Sheth, Pinal, Tovée, Martin J.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Philadelphia, PA Heldref 01.10.2008; Taylor & Francis; Taylor & Francis Inc
• Subjects: Adult; Anatomy & physiology; Attitudes; Behavior; Beliefs; Bias; Biological and medical sciences; Body; Body Composition; Body mass index; body shape; Body Size; Body Weight; College students; Environmental Influences; Ethnicity; Evidence; Experiments; Female; Females; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Human Body; Humans; Ideology; Interpersonal Attraction; Interpersonal Relationship; Judgement; Literature Reviews; Loneliness; Male; Males; Mens health; Multivariate Analysis; Negative Attitudes; Obesity; Obesity - psychology; Overweight; Perceptions; Photography; Prejudice; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; R&D; Rejection (Psychology); Research & development; Researchers; Scientific Concepts; Sex Factors; Social attribution, perception and cognition; Social Behavior; Social Isolation; Social psychology; Stereotypes; Stigma; stigmatization; Stimuli; Studies; Undergraduate Students; United Kingdom; Women; Human; Obesity; Social perception; stigmatization; Body image; Stigma; Body weight; Nutrition disorder; Sex; Overweight; Body mass index; body shape; Physical appearance; Nutritional status; Judgment
• DOI: 10.3200/SOCP.148.5.577-594
• ISSN: 0022-4545

The authors conducted 2 studies to examine the stigmatization of the female and male body using photographic stimuli of real people. In the first study, 75 female and 55 male undergraduates rated a series of 50 photographs of women ranging in body mass index (BMI) on 3 items: gets teased, lonely, and lazy. Both male and female observers rated bodies on either side of BMI 19-20 kg/m 2 higher for the gets teased and lonely items. For the lazy item, there was a clear pattern of greater stigmatization with increasing BMI. In the second study, 40 male and 40 female observers rated a series of photographs of the male body that varied in BMI and waist-to-chest ratio on the same items. Results showed that men and women judged overweight and more tubular men to be lazier, lonelier, and teased. These findings suggest that body size is an important characteristic to consider when examining body stigmatization among men and women. These results also show support for the beautiful-is-good bias.