The Stigma of Obesity: The Consequences of Naive Assumptions Concerning the Causes of Physical Deviance

It is proposed that whether or not a physically deviant person is derogated will depend on the extent to which that individual can be blamed or held responsible for his or her appearance. In line with this proposition, two experiments were conducted to examine how adolescent girls' opinions of an obese peer would be influenced by their beliefs about the cause of her obesity. In both studies, subjects were asked to look at afolder containing a photograph and a statement of introduction that a girl from a previous experiment had supposedly written. It was demonstrated that unless the obese target could offer an excuse for her weight, such as a glandular disorder, or could report recent successful weight loss, she was given a less positive evaluation, and was less liked, than was a normal-weight target.