Some Female Stereotypes of Male Body Build-Behavior Relations

Abstract

90 female college students, ranging in age from 16.9 to 40.2 yr., assigned items from a list of 30 phrases, which described various personality traits and social behaviors, to photographs representing an adult male endomorph, mesomorph, and ectomorph. The endomorph and ectomorph were associated with socially “negative” items, whereas the mesomorph was associated with socially “positive” items; these results were in accord with those of other studies investigating such stereotypes and support the hypothesis that a common body build-behavior stereotype exists in a child's socializing environment.