Weight bias in the workplace: does personality matter?

Higher body-weight individuals are frequently stigmatized and face prejudice and discrimination.Additionally, experiences of weight stigmatization are associated with several negative consequences. However, less is known about effective means for reducing weight bias. One strategy that has shown success in other areas of prejudice reduction, yet is less tested for weight bias reduction, is intergroup contact. Other research has emphasized the importance of person-based factors (Social Dominance Orientation (SDO); Right Wing Authoritarianism (RWA); etc.) in the development of prejudice. Less is known, however, about the role these variables play in the formation of negative attitudes toward higher body weight individuals, or how these variables might influence attitude change in the contact context. Participants (N = 639) were recruited from a northeastern university, and the study was completed online. The sample was a majority female (75.1%) and the average age was 20.80 (sd = 4.81). As expected, SDO and RWA were both significantly positively correlated with weight bias (rs = 0.13-0.45). Additionally, positive contact was significantly negatively correlated with weight bias (rs = -0.32- -0.37) and negative contact was significantly positively correlated with weight bias (rs = 0.36-0.40). Also as expected, positive contact was more frequent (M = 4.73, sd = 1.31) than negative contact (M = 2.33, sd = 1.15). Finally, in a simultaneous regression predicting weight bias (R2 = .21, F (2, 637) = 85.88, p <.001), negative contact (β = 0.33, t(635) = 9.36, p < .001) was found to have a stronger effect than positive contact (β = 0.29, t(635) = -8.20, p < .001). Personality effects were mixed and minimal. This study adds to the literature by examining the effects of positive and negative contact on weight bias. Consistent with previous studies, we found that although positive contact with higher body weight individuals in more common than negative contact, negative contact has a stronger influence on negative weight-based attitudes.This poster was presented at the first annual Celebration of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity while the author was an undergraduate student at Rutgers University-Camden