The heavy weight of death: How anti-fat bias is affected by weight-based group membership and existential threat
Research output: Journal contributions › Journal articles › Research › peer-review
Authors
Anti-fat bias is marked by a devaluation of overweight people compared with non-overweight persons. Even though belonging to the same group, research on social identity theory (SIT) indicates that overweight people also devaluate overweight others. Merging insights from research on anti-fat bias, SIT, and terror management theory, our study (n=101) provides new insights on motivational aspects of anti-fat bias by investigating the effects of existential threat on the evaluation of non-overweight and overweight people. Results revealed that participants in the existential threat condition displayed in-group bias: Participants perceiving themselves as non-overweight showed more pronounced anti-fat bias compared with participants in the non-death threat condition. In contrast, participants perceiving themselves as overweight demonstrated less anti-fat bias than controls.
Original language | English |
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Journal | Journal of Applied Social Psychology |
Volume | 45 |
Issue number | 3 |
Pages (from-to) | 139-146 |
Number of pages | 8 |
ISSN | 0021-9029 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 01.03.2015 |
Externally published | Yes |
- Psychology