Categorization as a Function of Body Type

Abstract

Research has revealed that obese or overweight individuals have been consistently devalued The current research was designed to determine the extent to which this devaluation of obese and overweight individuals extends to size-14 women who, according to apparel manufacturers, are the smallest of the large sizes. Student volunteers saw black and white slides of six women, three of whom wore size 6 and three of whom wore size 14. Concurrently they listened to an audio tape of a bogusperfume-marketing brainstorming session and then judged each model. The extent to which subjects categorized the models according to body type was also measured An analysis revealed differences in ratings of competence, friendliness, and judgments of work comfortsuch that the size-6 models received higher ratings than the size-14 models. However, for both groups of models, the mean ratings were above the midpoints of the scales. Furthermore, subjects were also found to categorize according to body type. These findings are congruent with a body of literature which supports the current cultural ideal of thinness.