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my work looks at
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obesity within the united states in the
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last 50 years
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obesity has tripled currently 68
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of americans are overweight and a full
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30 of those people
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are obese now a lot of the work has
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looked at
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the health and economic consequences for
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our health care system
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what happens when people are really
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obese and overweight
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what has received much less attention
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are the interpersonal and social costs
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and my research looks at how people who
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are obese are discriminated against
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and perceived differently within a
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workplace
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setting people are discriminating a way
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that
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we see obese people as less competent
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than non-obese people
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one of the things we find is that this
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is a
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bias that is we can separate actual
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competence from perceived competence
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and we see that people judge obese
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people unfairly
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the second thing we find is that these
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social perceptions
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are really labile they can be changed as
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a function of things like
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how warm somebody is so whether or not
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somebody evokes
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sympathy or disgust is a function
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of how warm they're perceived to be
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there are a couple things that surprised
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us uh first we find this bias
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it works for both men and for women who
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are heavy
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second we found that even heavy people
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are biased against
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other people who are heavy uh and third
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we were surprised at how
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how important this idea of warmth is
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that it's this idea about
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expressing your close relationships with
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your family
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your friends your pets that is when
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people express
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warmth they're judged to be much more
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sympathetic
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they're liked much better and that in
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fact this
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expression of warmth could be even more
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important than actually losing weight
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in changing the way we're perceived by
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others
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the two different implications of this
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work
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uh i think apply to people who are doing
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the judging
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like managers who are hiring and
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promoting people
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and for targets themselves but first i
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think about the managers that is
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as a manager we want to think about ways
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in which we can judge other people
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in a way that's unbiased and that might
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mean changing the
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the way we interview or promote people
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and specifically here i'm thinking about
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trying to make things as objective as
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possible
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so really judging people on the
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objective merits rather than
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some other holistic judgment that might
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be subject to bias
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the second set of implications where i
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think about
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are for people themselves as targets
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when
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we're concerned about how we're being
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judged by others
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demonstrating warmth emerges as a really
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important thing that is
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when we convey our warmth for our family
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our friends our co-workers
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that really matters and it turns out
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what we find is it matters in particular
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for people who are
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obese and might be targets of
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discrimination otherwise
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in our research what we looked at were
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people in basically two categories we
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we focused our contrasts on people who
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are sort of a normal
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size and an obese size
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and by normal what we did is we looked
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at meeting statistics
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within the united states and for example
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we looked at women who were five four
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uh and either 132 pounds or
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220 pounds and for men we looked at
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people who are five foot nine inches
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who are either 168 pounds or 243 pounds
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and those heavier weights are classified
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as obese
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what's interesting is we found that
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these effects they held for
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photos which might be more intuitive
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but they also held even if we just
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presented people with text
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so we showed people resume information
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and all they could see were just
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numbers they still had these visceral
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and emotional reactions to obesity
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what's interesting is the the biases we
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have
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against overweight people are different
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than the biases we have against
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other categories for example we know
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that there's discrimination based upon
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race
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ethnicity religion sexual orientation
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the bias against overweight people i
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think is particularly pernicious
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because it's judged to be acceptable
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that is
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people perceive it's as if people think
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you chose to be overweight you violated
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this protestant ethic
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against gluttony and that was your
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choice
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and so the sanctions we have against
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people who are obese
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tend to be more overt and more
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acceptable
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societally than than other
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discrimination that we might see
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well i think the first thing is to be
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aware that this is a potential bias
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and to recognize that as we judge other
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people we may
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judge obese people more harshly what we
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find in our research is a very
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consistent bias
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perceiving obese people to be less
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competent
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now what's interesting is that even when
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we disentangle actual competence
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from perceived competence we see the gap
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in judgment
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it's a bias and i think the first thing
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we can do is recognize that
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it is a potential bias when we're
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judging other people
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and again if we're if we're a manager
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for recruiting
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if we're promoting we want to think
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about relying on the objective criteria
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as much as possible and the way we've
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moved
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for example to try to make things more
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gender neutral
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as we do as we do recruiting and
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promotion
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we want to think about the same kinds of
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procedures for
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judging people based upon their their
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size and weight
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the second part is for people themselves
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for those of us that are a little bit
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heavier
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to think about not just the health
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benefits but now also the
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career and interpersonal benefits of
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losing weight
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and the importance of demonstrating
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warmth that is when we perceive
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when other people perceive us they're
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going to perceive us differently if
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we're warm we have close relationships
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we've demonstrated concern and care for
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other people
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you know i think the the most obvious
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story in the news
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or the one that certainly hits me first
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uh
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are stories about chris christie when
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he wanted to run for president
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there was a lot of news regarding his
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weight
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and in fact i have a quote here from
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michael kinsley
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this is on bloomsburg where
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he says look i'm sorry but new jersey
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governor chris christie
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cannot be president he is just too fat
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uh and it goes on but i think the idea
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that
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we're we accept this kind of bias
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in a way that we wouldn't if it was a
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racial ethnic
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uh or other type of discrimination but
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we see this to be far more acceptable
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when it has to do with weight
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we root our work in a bias content model
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where we look at perceptions of other
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people based upon two dimensions
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warmth and competence and here what
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we're looking at
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are people who are perceived to be low
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competence and so obesity
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what we find is one trigger that signals
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perceptions of low competence
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but there are others for example there
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are stereotypical groups like
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the elderly who are also perceived to be
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low incompetence
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now we find is that people who perceive
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to be low competence
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could be discriminated against but that
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social perception is really
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a labile changeable construct and when
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those people
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let's say the elderly demonstrate warmth
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they're perceived much more
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sympathetically than when they're
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perceived to be
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cold
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our research is the first to embed
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social perceptions
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of obesity within a broader theoretical
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framework
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and what this framework allows us to do
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is
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explore how perceptions can change
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and we develop testable predictions and
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test those
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to show that things like warmth for
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example
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can shift in a predictable way the
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reactions that we get both the
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perceptions and the behavior
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consequences
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that follow those perceptions
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i'm very interested in how the
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appearance
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of somebody influences their
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interpersonal perception
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and how it influences our social
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interactions
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i focus on obesity because it's such a
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growing
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and important problem in the united
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states and abroad
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but i'm also interested in how other
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aspects of appearance like physical
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attractiveness
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influence our social perceptions
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with obesity in particular i'm also
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interested in what happens for example
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after we lose weight
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you can imagine somebody that loses
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weight both through a surgical
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operation or by diet and exercise
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we might perceive people differently as
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a function of how they lost weight
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and if they lost weight so i think there
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are a lot of questions going forward
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that we could
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fruitfully explore
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you
