Prejudicial and Stereotypical Attitudes about the Issue of Obesity: An Action Project

Abstract

Scientific literature about stereotypical and prejudicial attitudes toward obese people indicates rejection toward the obese individuals and preferences toward thin and average ones, as well as a stereotypical profile that attributes to obese people traits such as weakness, laziness, and sickness, while to thin and average people characteristics as beauty, strength, health, and successfulness Carels & Musher-Eizenman, 2010). One of the most useful strategies for reducing the effects of negative prejudices and stereotypes toward the obesity and obese people is constituted by contact, achievable both in face to face and imagined setting. Purpose: analysis of the exposure effects to stimuli (training course about prejudice on obesity) functional to reduce negative attitudes toward obese people. Participants: 55 psychology university students at University of Catania, Sicily (Italy). Implicit and explicit measures: 1) Anti-fat Attitudes and Dislike of Fat People Scale; 2) Semantic Differential Technique for Fat and Thin People Representation and Physical Self; 3) Fat Stereotypes Questionnaire; 4) GNAT (Nosek & Banaji, 2001). All measures were used before and after the training course (for three months) about the "obesity issue". Results (before-after the training course): a) low levels of anti-fat prejudice and of dislike of fat people; b) absence of change of fat stereotypes; c) significant increase in fat and thin people positive representation, as well as in self-representation; d) significant effects of the training course only in relation to an increase of accuracy in the GNAT application. Future suggestions regarding to the effects of the direct and imagined contact with obese people functional to reduce negative attitudes toward these target were discussed.