This article was downloaded by: [University of Dayton] On: 01 January 2015, At: 07:50 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

The Journal of Social Psychology Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/vsoc20

Altering Attitudes and Knowledge about Obesity a

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Mary B. Harris , Laurie C. Walters & Stefanie Waschull

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Department of Educational , Foundations University of New Mexico , USA b

University of Georgia , USA Published online: 30 Jun 2010.

To cite this article: Mary B. Harris , Laurie C. Walters & Stefanie Waschull (1991) Altering Attitudes and Knowledge about Obesity, The Journal of Social Psychology, 131:6, 881-884, DOI: 10.1080/00224545.1991.9924675 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00224545.1991.9924675

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The Journal of Social Psychology, 131(6), 881-884

Altering Attitudes and Knowledge About Obesity MARY B. HARRIS Department of Educational Foundations University of New Mexico

LAURIE C. WALTERS STEFANIE WASCHULL University of Georgia

STIGMATIZATION OF THE OBESE in Western cultures has caused obese individuals to suffer discrimination and feelings of shame and guilt (Allon, 1989; Harris,Waschull, & Walters, 1990) and women of average weight to become obsessed with weight and eating (Rodm, Silberstein, & Striegel-Moore, 1985). This study was an attempt to change these negative attitudes toward the obese by providing (a) factual information about obesity or not and (b) exposure to either no models, high-status obese models, or models who were similar to the subjects (i.e., university students with similar music and activity preferences) except for being obese. Requests for reprints should be sent to Mary B. Harris, Department of Educational Foundations, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131-1266. 881

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Subjects were 159 female and 85 male undergraduate psychology students (mean age, 18.8 years) at an American university. Most subjects (89%) were White, with 9% Black, 1% Asian, and 1% Hispanic. They were told that they would be reading and evaluating different interviews written for a school newspaper, and they were randomly assigned to conditions with randomly ordered questionnaires. Students read one of six versions of a questionnaire that formed a 2 (expert interview or none) x 3 (high status, empathy, or no model) factorial design. Half of the subjects read an interview in which a noted obesity researcher responded to questions about her interest in obesity, the causes and treatment of obesity, and social attitudes toward the obese (expert interview). This manipulation was crossed with a second one. One third of the subjects read interviews with three high-status individuals who described themselves as overweight: a successful and popular female undergraduate, a popular undergraduate football player, and a female social work professor (status interview). A second third read interviews with three overweight people-a female undergraduate, a male undergraduate, and an alumnawho described themselves as overweight and who were designed to seem likable and similar to the students by means of their preferences for activities and music (empathy interview). The other third did not read a set of three interviews, although half of this group of subjects had previously read the expert interview. After reading and rating the interviews (except for the sixth of the subjects who had read no interviews), subjects read on the next page of the questionnaire that the interviews had been grouped for topic comparability and that they had been assigned to the “weight” group, as most of the interviews that they read included some mention of weight. To determine whether knowledge and opinions about a topic affect interview ratings, we asked the subjects to respond to some questions about weight. The first set of questions constituted the 12-item knowledge scale of Price, O’Connell, and Kukulka (1985), on which scores ranged from 0 to 24. On the second measure, subjects indicated their feelings about “Most women who are substantially overweight” by circling a number between 1 (not at all) and 7 (extremely) for each of the following adjectives: lazy, sexless, neat, ugly, admirable, attractive, weak, happy, selfish, self-denying, energetic, sexy, generous, self-indulgent, sad, sloppy, powerful, and pathetic. Subjects then responded to the same 18 adjectives for “substantially overweight” men. A 2 (Presence or Absence of Expert Interview) x 3 (Status, Empathy, or Neither Interview) x 2 (Sex of Subject) regression approach analysis of variance (ANOVA) on the Knowledge test scores revealed that subjects who read the expert interview scored significantly higher (M = 19.04) than those who had not (M = 16.74), F(1, 214) = 43.28, p < .001. No other main ef-

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fects or interactions were significant, and knowledge test scores were uncorrelated with body mass index for both male subjects, r(83) = -.01, and female subjects, r(149) = - .03. Scores on the attitude items were recoded so that in all cases a higher number indicated a more negative score. The measures of negative attitudes toward “substantially overweight” women and men had alphas of .769 and .755, respectively. The mean levels of prejudice against “substantially overweight” women (M = 4.40; t(232) = 9.33, p c .001) and men (M = 4.45; t(232) = 10.71, p < .001) were both significantly higher than the neutral point of 4.00. However, two 2 x 3 x 2 ANOVAs revealed no significant main effects or interactions for attitudes toward these men and women. Attitudes toward “substantially overweight” men and women were significantly positively correlated for both male and female subjects, the smaller r(73) = .77, p c .001. However, these attitudes were not significantly correlated with either knowledge score or body mass index for either male or female subjects, the largest r(78) = .12, p > .05. Both the mean ratings of the interviews and the subjects’ subsequent comments suggested that they found the interviews generally interesting and informative. Indeed, reading the expert interview led to an increase in subjects’ factual knowledge about obesity. However, this increase in knowledge clearly did not lead to a change in attitudes; neither more knowledgeable people nor heavier ones were considered to be less prejudiced against the obese, nor did reading about admirable, high-status models or likable ones similar to the subjects themselves change their negative attitudes. Apparently, more powerful procedures are necessary to alter such a widely held and socially acceptable prejudice. Extended instructional procedures involving professionally produced multimedia presentations, exposure to high-status but heavier models on television and in the print media, and creation of a greater sense of empathy toward the obese by including people of all weights as models in television shows, books, and magazines would provide more potent tests of the approaches used in this study. Other attitude change methods, including inducement of behavioral changes such as socializing with someone who is fat, associating pleasant experiences with the presence of an obese person, writing counterattitudinal essays, or value self-confrontation (Schwartz & Inbar-Saban, 1988), may yield positive results. Application of these procedures to reduce the widespread prejudice against the overweight should provide a demanding but important challenge for social psychologists. REFERENCES

Allon, N. (1979). Self-perceptions of the stigma of overweight in relationship to weight-losing patterns. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 32, 470-480.

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Hanis, M. B., Waschull, S., & Walters, L. C. (1990). Feeling fat: Motivations, knowledge and attitudes of overweight women and men. Psychological Reports, 67,

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Price, H. H., O’Connell, J. K., & Kukulka, G. (1985). Development of a short obesity knowledge scale using four different response formats. Journal of School Health, 55, 382-384. Rodin, J., Silberstein, L., & Striegel-Moore, R. (1985). Women and weight: A normative discontent. In T. B. Sonderegger (Ed.), Psychology and gender, Nebraska Symposium on Motivation, 1984 (pp. 267-307). Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press. Schwartz, S. H., & Inbar-Saban, N. (1988). Value self-confrontation as a method to aid in weight loss. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54, 3%-404.

Received November 14, 1990

Altering attitudes and knowledge about obesity.

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