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Considerable evidence indicates that individuals with obesity are vulnerable to stigma and discrimination. However, comparably less research has examined strategies to reduce weight bias, and the existing evidence is mixed. To help clarify these findings and incorporate prejudice-reduction interventions that have been successfully applied to other stigmatized groups (i.e., empathy-induction and perspective-taking), we experimentally tested and compared 4 different brief stigma-reduction interventions in a national sample of American adults. Participants (N ϭ 650) were randomly assigned to 1 of 4 experimental conditions (empathy, perspective-taking, causal information, or empathy/information hybrid) or a control condition. Outcome variables included explicit weight bias (fat phobia), social distance, and affective reactions to individuals with obesity. The empathy and perspective-taking conditions induced more empathy than the control and informational conditions, and altered affective reactions toward persons with obesity in the expected directions. However, no experimental condition reduced fat phobia or social distance relative to the control condition. The current findings suggest that empathy-evoking and perspective-taking strategies may increase empathy and alter affective reactions toward individuals with obesity; however, these strategies remain questionable as effective means to reduce weight stigma.

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Research grounded in gender role theories has shown that women face numerous employment disadvantages relative to men, with mothers often facing the greatest obstacles. We extend this literature by proposing that motherhood is not a necessary condition for women to face motherhood penalties. Instead, managers' expectations that an applicant will have a child in the near future (i.e., “maybe baby” expectations) increases their perceptions of risk associated with employing childfree, childbearing‐aged women—but not men. Investigating the intersection of gender and age, and integrating economic theories of discrimination, we conceptualize hiring as a risk assessment process, proposing that managers' risk perceptions drive more precarious employment conditions for this group of women. Results from a field study with early career employees (Study 1) and a randomized experiment with hiring managers (Study 2) support our predictions across attitudinal (e.g., desire to offer a temporary job contract; Study 2) and objective indicators (e.g., having a temporary job contract; Study 1); female applicants can also mitigate this “maybe baby” risk by signaling a lack of interest in having children or by emphasizing their commitment and work ethic (Study 2). Our findings suggest that the perceived risks of parenthood can be hazardous for child‐bearing‐aged, childfree working women who simply may become parents (vs. men and mothers; vs. childfree women who are significantly younger or older than the average age of the first childbearing in the local context).

Conversely, one rare but notable area of employment where men are disadvantaged is parental leave. To illustrate, in the US and across the globe, men are less eligible for and less often take parental leave compared with women (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development [OECD], 2016; The Council of Economic Advisors, 2014); when they do take parental leave, it is much shorter. Furthermore, new fathers are still left out of current U.S.

Interpersonal anxiety (i.e., the fear of negative consequences from interacting with someone) may be more prominent in post-#MeToo organizations when interacting with someone of a different gender. Initial exchanges may particularly trigger this anxiety, obfuscating key organizational decisions such as hiring. Given humor's positive, intrapersonal stress-reduction effects, we propose that humor also reduces interpersonal anxiety. In three mixed-methods experiments with hiring managers, we examined the effects of applicant and evaluator gender (i.e., same-/mixed-gender dyad), positive applicant humor (i.e., a pun), and context (i.e., gender salience) in job interviews. Results showed that mixed-gender (vs. same-gender) interactions elicited more interpersonal anxiety, particularly when gender was more salient; mixed-gender interactions also predicted downstream attitudinal outcomes (e.g., social attraction and willingness to hire) and hiring decisions (e.g., selection and rejection) via interpersonal anxiety. Although humor reduced interpersonal anxiety and its consequences for female applicants, the opposite was true for male applicants when gender was salient, because it signaled some of the same expectations that initially triggered the interpersonal anxiety: the potential for harmful sexual behavior. In sum, we integrated diversity and humor theories to examine interpersonal anxiety in same-and mixed-gender interactions and then tested the extent to which humor relieved it.