Overweight People Have Low Levels of Implicit Weight Bias, but Overweight Nations Have High Levels of Implicit Weight Bias

• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0083543
• Publication Date: 2013-12-17T22:50:02Z
• Authors: Maddalena Marini; Natarajan Sriram; Konrad Schnabel; Norbert Maliszewski; Thierry Devos; Bo Ekehammar; Reinout Wiers; Cai HuaJian; Mónika Somogyi; Kimihiro Shiomura; Simone Schnall; Félix Neto; Yoav Bar-Anan; Michelangelo Vian...; Alfonso Ayala; Gabriel Dorantes; Jaihyun Park; Selin Kesebir; Antonio Pereira; Bogdan Tulbure; Tuulia Ortner; Irena Stepanikova; Anthony G. Greenwald; Brian A. Nosek
• Keywords: Underweight; Implicit attitude; Weight stigma; Implicit-association test

Although a greater degree of personal obesity is associated with weaker negativity toward overweight people on both explicit (i.e., self-report) and implicit indirect behavioral) measures, still prefer thin average. We investigated whether the national cultural context – particularly prevalence predicts attitudes independent identity weight status. Data were collected from total sample 338,121 citizens 71 nations in 22 different languages Project Implicit website (https://implicit.harvard.edu/) between May 2006 October 2010. relationship bias at individual across individuals) nations) level. Explicit was assessed self-reported preference people; measured Association Test (IAT). The estimates obtained by averaging scores for each nation. Obesity level defined as Body Mass Index (BMI) scores, whereas three indicators (national BMI, percentage underweight people) publicly available databases. Across individuals, compared to people. nations, contrast, stronger This result indicates levels.